Sunday, February 10, 2013

Thoughts on writing it down...

One of my very favourite people in the world (god - she's a good, good and fantastic kinda person.  If you don't know her, you really really should) asked me recently if I ever worried about the things I wrote in this blog.  Because I kinda put a lot of me out there.  Both to total strangers and to people who know me. (The latter of which is, of course, much more disconcerting.)

And the answer is yes.  I worry about it. I worry about most things.  Most of the time.  I'm a worrier.  This won't come as a shock to read, I'm certain.

I worry that my kiddos will read this stuff someday and think (oh, oh so mistakenly) that my pretty blunt discussions about the intense emotional pitfalls and difficulties of being a mama somehow translates into a lack of love for them - which couldn't be further from reality.

I worry that acquaintances will read this and judge me (and I'm sure this will, or already has, happen).

I worry that people I know and love will read this and judge me (and yes, this has happened).

But oddly, this space is one in my life that I probably worry the least about.

Off-line, and in real life, I am a people-pleaser. I cringe, inwardly and outwardly, at the thought of someone not liking me or doing 'the wrong thing.' I cringe, outwardly and inwardly, at the thought of someone being unhappy or displeased if that's something I might be able to change via my behaviour (regardless of whether this behaviour is self-denying or not). It's 'a thing' and it's a friggin' bad thing and it often, often leads me to silencing many things about myself.

But here - on-line - I have somehow created a space for myself in which I can (and quite often do) say anything.  And it occurred to me, when my friend asked me about it, that I don't so much care who likes it or doesn't like it or likes me or doesn't like me.

I started this blog at a time when I was sure that I had disappeared.  Into the world of stay-at-home motherhood - into a world where nobody (and I do mean nobody) could see me.  And a world where I stopped being able to see myself.  This blog was a forum for me to begin existing again.  As a person.  A person who might matter somehow beyond her role as the wife of somebody important and the mother of two somebodys who are important.  It became a place for me to be, well, visible.  It became something - possibly the only thing - that was all mine.  A place where, oddly, I didn't feel any need to silence myself in order to please people.  And I still don't. 

If people who know me, or sorta know me, don't want to read the me-ness of this space - if it's too intimate or weird - I trust that they won't tune in.  I choose to lay it bare. Maybe it's brave.  Maybe it;s stupid. Definitely, it's risky. I write at my own risk, you read to your own risk, if that's what you choose.

I don't really think of myself as a writer.  More like someone whose brain is a constant whirligig. A very whirly whirly whirligig. And this space let's me get out of my head, however momentarily, and onto the page. I probably miss the mark more than I hit it.  It's full of typos and I wish I had more time to do something about that.  And it's really, really full of me.  As I am.  Which is to say, sometimes too much.  And upon reflection, I'm pretty ok with that.

I stopped writing here for awhile because I was afraid that I wouldn't be able to handle the messiness of school and kids and life.  But I realized it was far messier not to write it down, and I"m ever so grateful to have it back.




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