I don't write this blog because I need advice.
I don't write it because I'm looking for help.
When I reveal something about the way I'm feeling, it's not because I'm lacking or stupid or under educated and I'm hoping the somebody out there will be able to fix my problems.
I'm not full of problems any more than anybody else is. It's just that I make it a point to express the things a lot of people feel the need to keep private or secret. I don't feel like I gain anything by pretending that I feel a way I don't feel. I don't feel like anybody else can gain anything from me if I'm pretending that only certain parts of me are real or valid. I'm not any unhappier or more disorganized or failing than the millions of other people who live a life like mine.
When I reveal something that a person normally wouldn't, it's because I KNOW that you feel the same way. Maybe you haven't said so. Maybe you feel like you can't say so. Maybe you're not admitting it, but, if you have any capacity to understand me and my life, if we are people who believe similar things and live under similar circumstances, you'll read where I'm admitting that I'm lost or I'm crazy or I'm losing it or I'm delirious or I'm lonely or I'm depressed, and you'll feel like... THANK FUCKING GOD somebody else feels that way.
You don't need to hear about it every time I have a perfectly fine experience, having brunch and taking a walk, or whatever. I do those things all the time. I have happy, fine experiences all the time. Every day, all day. I just don't write about them, because I mean... I had lunch with a friend today. She is going back to school. She looked nice, was wearing a headband. I wore a dress I liked. Louisey needed a diaper change in the middle of the meal, and so I had to change her. We decided that my friend and her daughter should come over to swim later this week. We got a little pool with a pump and a filter. The girls and I have been having a really fun time swimming in it and it would be nice to have a friend come over and swim with us. They're coming to Louisey's birthday party on Saturday. I need to make a quinoa salad this evening and decide what kind of cake I'm baking.
That is what my life is like, on a day to day basis. I don't write about that stuff very much. Please forgive me, but I don't have any desire to write about that stuff. It's my life. I live it every day. My life is pretty ordinary and fine and sweet and nice... but I am not just an ordinary and nice girl. There is more to me than swimming and lunch and splitting a cupcake, oh why not? Naughty, naughty! I don't go into a writing spell and just HAVE TO GET OUT how we ate lunch at the park and then went to the library and held hands crossing the street and we loved one another like we always do.
I don't need advice about how to be happier. Unless you're my husband or my child or my mother or my sibling, you don't know me and my life better than I do. Unless you're reading what I write here and feeling like, "I go through that all the time," or "I've been through that so many times," I probably didn't write that particular post for you. Actually, if you read something I've written, and you feel like you know what I need better than I do and you feel an urge to help me because I'm stupid or crazy or a poor, poor thing - then I DEFINITELY didn't write that post for you. If you're looking at the things I share about myself, and all you see if a bunch of mistakes and unhappiness, then you're not really getting it. And that's totally okay.
I like it when something I say makes somebody else feel less lonely. And I like it when I share something that's hard to share, and I find out that I'm not alone, either.
I am grateful for you. I am so happy that you're here and that you share your life with me. I love that I've made friends doing this. I've come to know so many people I love and admire. Every time you write to me and say, "I feel this post with everything that I am," I feel like we're all doing something important together. We're telling the truth and we're being together, and for a host of reasons, society doesn't want us to tell the truth. We're supposed to feel lonely and not good enough and most of all, we're supposed to feel afraid. We're not used to telling the truth. It feels weird to be honest about JUST HOW IMPERFECT we are. We're used to cleaning our houses in a fury before people visit. We're used to saying, "Good! I'm fine, thanks! How are you?" Maybe you don't have the exact same flaws that I do, but you're full of your own. I know they are in there, millions of them squirming around under the surface... and I love you for them.
I'm fine, thanks. And sometimes I'm not. I need to tell both stories. That's why I do this.
Hey, you quoted me! :)
ReplyDeleteI pretty much blog (or used to blog) for these reasons. I don't know why, really, but I haven't felt like blogging for awhile. So I haven't been.
I have this friend who is fond of telling me that I need to "get over it" while I'm telling him some of my deepest feelings. If he's not telling me that, he's telling me something else, like "Just take one thing at a time" and everything else I've heard a million times. But we don't talk about our feelings so people can tell us what to do with them, you know? I think many people out there feel that they need to have answers to our questions and concerns, and that's not true. Me, I just like it when people listen and show support.
Anyway, I'm happy to be here to listen to you. I love your blog. I love blogs that are real and truthful. There aren't too many of those out there.
Oh, yes. I so needed to read this. I've been wondering what I'm doing on my own blog, writing motherhood? Exploring what I love, the intersection of culture and parenting? Telling fun stories? Doing the thing that all other blogger do? I've found that I've moved away from what I love to write, writing what I feel in my bones because I feel so self-conscious for all the gifts this life offers, because it is sweet and nice and lovely. But still, there's an internal world that isn't so straightforward. And there are things that aren't so sweet or nice or lovely that I want to write, but I'm like, you're too lucky, privileged white girl, be thankful for your brunches, and your sweet and nice times, and don't complain that your baby won't sleep and you wonder if the choices you've made are the reason. Anyway, the long and the sort of this long winded comment is, thank you. I needed this. You've given me courage to write more of what I want to say.
ReplyDeleteI think what you're doing and writing here stands out. There is SO MUCH blogging that seems to exist only to present perfection to the world --- perfect moms and dads raising perfect kids, perfect and seamlessly confident life choices, perfect crafting and baking and relationships. So many bloggers seem to be trying to 'sell' their life and their families, like a product. It's gross. I experience your writing and your blog as a much more real and honest expression of self. Life is so much more complicated and relationships are so much more dynamic and alive than many bloggers seem to portray. Your sharing of experiences with depression, with multi-tasking what's meaningful, and with digging into your past and coming to terms with 'your story' as incredibly powerful, thoughtful, and refreshing! Thank you. ---Amy (I don't have any of those 'identities', sorry for the anon comment)
ReplyDeleteI have NO IDEA how I haven't subscribed to your blog yet (wait, unless I lost my subscription when GFC went down), but this post is amazing and I'm grateful to have stumbled upon it today. THIS is the kind of blogging I appreciate most and simply need to read. My ultimate blogging goal is to allow myself to open up completely, to be transparent. And sometimes I can do that. But I admit I struggle so much with others' perceptions of me. Some days it is excruciating to not edit myself, or to even click Publish at all. I admire your ability to do so & hope you keep doing it.
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