Life is a Banquet

Being Honest

If I am to be honest, and that is the whole point, now, isn't it, I stopped blogging once I realized that I was never going to be Dooce.  I started blogging thinking that perhaps it was like school--be dilgent, do your homework, and succes follows.  Oh, I TOLD myself that I wrote for me.  But, in reality I wrote to appease the gnawing Praise Junkie that continues to reside in me despite multiple excorcisms.  When I was a guest blogger at Michelle's, when I got my first non-friend/relative comment, when I hit double digits on a post, I felt full as the hollow empty feeling resided a bit.  I checked my stats obscessively. 

The fear of failure, the fear that I already WAS a failure was always with me.  Why weren't more people reading me?  Did I need to start talking about bowel movements and my sex life?  Was I a bad writer? Not funny? Not readable? Too boring? Too bland?  Did I not comment enough on other people's blogs?  WHAT WAS I DOING WRONG?

Eventually, I came to feel that I had just missed the curve with this whole writing thing.  Only a handful of people would get famous from blogs, and I just wasn't it.  Ditto for the whole novel writing thing.  People reading less.  Saturated market.  Impossible to break in.  Just not in the cards for me. 

I didn't talk about this deep seated belief that I was simply born at the wrong time, trying this at the wrong time, or my worst fear that I was simply lacking in talent.  I let my depression drive the ship for a while.  I got hung up on other people's lives, other people's success.  I spent (and spend) hours and hours reading other's blogs.  Writing blogs became so painful I avoided them altogether, instead getting sucked into infertilty blogs, knitting blogs, mommy blogs.  Each comment, each success felt like a knife.   Each well written book by a successful author felt like a slap, a personal affront.  Each good small-house book felt like an insult. 

So, I lost myself in my knitting.  In knitting, there is certainty: an item will emerge and you will be praised for its creation.  If you slog through, you will be satisfied at the end.  If you follow the pattern, check your gauge, 95% of the time, the item will fit.   In writing, there were no such certainties. 

Could I bear to keep writing knowing I would most likely not be published? Not be able to support myself even if I was? Could I bear writing knowing that I was not Dooce or Yarn Harlot, or Meg Cabot, Jennifer Cruise or Lori Foster?  Could I bear to keep going feeling this deep seated certainty that it was all for nothing? My "back to school" plan seemed like a joke to me or rather on me.  I wanted something so much that I believed would never happen. Over the last six months, writing and dieting became these untouchable things that I wanted so badly and yet could not do. 

I'm not sure what the answer is.  I want to find my way back to self-confidence, to tenacity.  I want to be able to say, "screw this, I am going to do this anyway."  I want to not be a Praise Junkie to not have such an ugly need keeping me from what I want more than anything.   

Back From the Future

Perhaps there will reach a point when I can't do this anymore, when I don't yearn for this outlet, don't miss it at all.   This isn't that point. 

I took a hiatus over the Spring because I started teaching.  In my new teacher prim-and-proper mindset, I took the blog offline because I was afraid of my students finding the blog, afraid of them seeing the "real me."  I have never been an anonymous blogger--more like semi-cloistered.  I see the problems my friends with anonymous blogs have run into, and that's just not me.  I hang it all out there.

Over the winter, I had some sage advice that perhaps I didn't want to be hanging it all out there where others could see it so easily, that my WYSIWYG persona just didn't fit the staid confines of Academia.   The giver(s) of this advice had my best interests at heart I am sure, and they were worried about my reputation, about appearances.   I've been contemplating a comeback for sometime.  Then Frances's post about WYSIWYG sent me over the edge.   

I stopped blogging about food because I didn't want to admit what a shambles that had become, what gaping ugliness remained behind.

I stopped blogging about writing when I hit a wall of self-doubt and pity. 

I stopped blogging about my life when I received repeated advice that I was simply too honest, that I put too much out there, that what I talked about was simply TMI and not "professional."  Blogging was unsuitable for a future author or professor. 

Before that, there were people I didn't talk to, friendships I let putter out, never begin, because I could not face my own truth.  I did not talk to my mother much for a few years for the same reason.  My truth scared me. 

I tried various ways to fill the hole blogging left behind.  So I blogged about my one "acceptable" topic: knitting.   I put pictures up on Flickr.  I tried writing letters to the child I hope to have soon. But, I felt stymied every time I felt my personality slipping though.  Is it too much to talk about my husband? To mention my problems? My health? 

I thought about coming back anonymously.  I know what few readers I had (10? 20?) have moved on. It would be relatively simple to start again, different URL, same me.  But, this is simply not me.  I write primarily for myself, and I have spent too long hiding from me.  I write the truth I cannot always speak aloud for my family, my friends, those closest to me.  Many of of whom choose not to read the blog, are bored by my monologues or simply lack the time--but I do not want to hide the existence of this part of me, living in fear of discovery, of being "shut down."

The truth is, I have a done a pretty darn good job of shutting myself down.  I don't need any help in that department.  I have spent the bulk of my 27 years not mentioning the various white elephants in the room.  I have told little white lies, and I have run from myself, over and over and over again. 

I do not flatter myself that one woman sharing her truth about her crazy-normal life will make a difference.  It will not make me rich.  It will not land me a blog-to-book deal.  It will not garner me legions of adoring fans.  It does not make me a better person or even a better writer.  But, what it makes me is honest.  Honest.  And, that my friends is reason enough to keep being here.     When I write, I see myself differently and I like what I see even when I see the raw gritty truth staring back at me.  This is why I am back.