For you, and also for myself, to make this proclamation to the world / the internet / to no one at all [feel free to skip the following parentheticals and jump over the next five paragraphs because we’re about to go on a tangent] [you can also skip to the bottom for the journal prompts if you want to get yourself writing / thinking].
(I’m falling more and more in love with this thing about blogs: how I’m simultaneously proclaiming things to no one and everyone, because it’s all findable. This paragraph could be read by every single person with internet access, and yet it won’t be. So much possibility, so much intimacy and also anonymity, both.)
One thing I’m trying to figure out is how to capture stream of consciousness thoughts, how to allow my typing to ramble and wander and not edit my mind. And also when to delete it / restrain from it. Or maybe I shouldn’t even differentiate it with parenthesis, maybe I should leave it up to readers to identify; I mean really, why does it even need to be identifiable at all?
(That reminds me of a conversation I had on a Hinge date [we wore masks and sat outside I promise, and yes, I’m on dating apps, I have nothing against them, fill out the contact form if you ever want to have a philosophical chat about Tinder!] the other day about Magical Realism: he said he doesn’t like the genre because he doesn’t know where the line is—like when is the story fantasy and when is it realistic fiction? I told him that’s what used to bother me about it, that the first time I read Annie Proulx’s short story Hell Hole which is featured in her collection “Bad Dirt,” there’s this scene where the ground opens up and swallows a character, and I was pissed. It seemed like a way of cheating, where Proulx just gets to decide when the world is a realistic one and when the edges of it are more frayed, more malleable. And then in college, I learned more about the history of Magical Realism, how some of the most popular writers of Magical Realism emerged in Latin America during political turmoil, how it was a way to critique the absurdity of the world they were living in and simultaneously, a way to escape it. Once the genre had that background, I fell in love. I saw it as an avenue into a deeper understanding of both the personal and political psyche. I saw it as both exploration and critique.
Anyways! I didn’t say all that, but I did tell him that this same thing that used to annoy me—not knowing where the line was—is now what I love about it. It challenges our desire for predictability, it makes us aware of conventions and beliefs that were so deep-seeded inside us, we weren’t aware of them until the story did the opposite. It’s a beautiful tool for awareness.
So here we are, three paragraphs later, and I don’t know how I’m going to differentiate tangents from the purpose / theme / focus of the blog post, but right now I’m leaning towards the good old fashioned parenthesis.)
I want to say that I’m dealing with a lot right now. As are most of us. How could you not be with a political and pandemic-infused landscape such as this? With the amount of time we’re forced to spend alone or with the same people, the way our lives have been forced to shrink since March of this year. Eventually, I’m going to delve into the specifics / try to trace the timeline of the things, their emergence, when the awareness started and when the change came.
The big ones are:
I’m recovering from 12 years of disordered eating.
I recently got diagnosed with generalized anxiety disorder.
I am halfway through writing a novel that’s thinly veiled nonfiction about a woman’s relationship with her body and her obsession with getting the world’s approval.
I’m unlearning and re-teaching myself about beauty.
The medium ones are:
I’m pretty lonely and my therapist is helping me acknowledge the part I play in this / the behaviors I have that lead to this (it’s a pattern / more on that later).
I recently had a falling out with one of my closest friends and learned that it was because of microaggressions I had committed.
I’m trying to figure out if I want to be a writer / if I can make it as a writer.
I’m pretty obsessed with manifesting and affirmations.
There are lots of small ones, but now is not the time for them. I want to give the big ones space. I want to own them and sit with them and give them to you by telling you about them.
Well, here’s two quick ones: I stopped drinking caffeine 2 months ago (to help with my anxiety) and I work at a restaurant.
I wanted to proclaim these because they will all weave themselves into my posts. They may not be at the forefront, but they’re probably somewhere in the background. If anything, they’re part of the background of why I decided to start this blog.
Literature that has helped me immensely that will also probably tangle itself into this blog:
Loving What Is by Byron Katie
Women Food and God by Geneen Roth
That’s all for now.
OH WAIT. I have something for you:
I hope if you need to make a proclamation to someone, to yourself, or to a piece of paper, that you feel comfortable and confident enough to do that today.
Prompts and thoughts:
Things worth proclaiming:
Things in my life, divided into big, medium, and small categories:
All the stuff I never told you, and still might not:
Things I would tell you if you were here:
Things I want to tell myself (more often) (for the first time):
And some other ones inspired by the tangents of this post:
What are your tools for awareness?
What do you want to stop editing from your mind?
When do you need a line between two things and when do you not?
Where is your thinking black and white when it should be more gray, and perhaps more curious, maybe more generous?