on the joys & frustrations of blogging

So here's the thing about blogging. It is indeed tricky and public and ripe with potential for embarrassment and varied interpretations. In college I discovered blogs that melted me, that spoke my truths, that helped me heal some of my most broken parts. I started my own blog, in part to keep better track of my writing than in scattered, half-filled journals, in part to hone my writing skills, and in part to give back to this incredible community of bloggers who share themselves so deeply and vulnerably. 

I take someone feeling offended by my posts quite seriously. I know the feeling--the punched in the gut, head rush, tearful reaction to someone insulting me. I know the feeling of being hurt and insulted but not being able to defend myself.

Unless you read my posts and then comment on them or contact me directly, you can't defend yourself right away. And that sucks, doesn't it? It's a weird sort of situation akin to hearing gossip about you second or third hand. I welcome people replying to me. But it doesn't always happen, and the hurt can be felt anyway, even months later when a situation seems to have been resolved in some way outside of the internet.

I also take someone reading my posts and concluding I'm being overly dramatic and too sensitive quite seriously. Because dude, I get to be sensitive. I get to own my particular molecular constitution that makes me feel a lot of things all of the time. And if talking--writing--through my anxieties and neuroses makes it easier to move about in this world and connect deeply with others, then it's a very good thing to do. It beats a lot of other coping mechanisms. (Note to self: Write post on the goodness of sensitivity.)  

Ever since I was a young kiddo I wrote to express and process painful feelings. I still have diaries from when I was in grade school, in which I wrote about feeling left out or someone hurting my feelings. I worry that this comes across as terribly narcissistic. Boy do I wish I could control these feelings. I know as an adult that it's not about me. Or that sometimes it very much is about me, but that no one person has the final say in who I am. It's okay if some people think keeping a blog is silly or that my passions aren't all that interesting, and so on. It's not as though I have to show up in the same third-grade classroom with the same mean girls all year. There's more than enough room in this world for the people who like you and the few that don't.

As Glennon Doyle Melton puts it, I think I was born with an extra dose of sensitivity. And from early on, writing was my way of handling those feelings. As an adult, I hope my readers see evolution. That I don't end angry posts with rage and indignation, but with some clarity and sense of forward movement.

When I write about feeling angry towards something or someone, I never mean to convey it as the absolute truth of the situation as a whole. I don't mean it as, I am right. You are wrong. The end. In fact, I think in just about every post of that nature I try to acknowledge that I am 100% biased, and that I do 'wrong' things just about all the time and that finger pointing is no more than 'kettle, kettle, black, black.' But that's the point. To normalize these experiences. To give myself permission to feel things that are uncomfortable. And to ingrain in myself a sense of hope about rising above anger and feeling wronged, getting to the root of what's so hurtful about it, and sharing that hope with others.

The point is, I don't write hurtful things in order to malign but to process and move past. And I don't write about something flippant that won't bother me a day or two later. I get that most uncomfortable feelings pass. And when they don't, when something still nags at me and strikes me as hurtful or unfair after days or weeks of sitting with it, I unravel it here and try to find some meaning from it all--particularly if the situation involves someone who refuses to or can't, for whatever reasons, engage directly with me.

I wrote above about my fear of being perceived as overly sensitive. I suppose another fear is that people think I see myself as holier-than-thou. Look at me, with all of this insight and inner peace! Oh, fuck no. If my posts appear polished and insightful it is the result of work. Talking with my partner, parents, friends. Rolling it over in my head. Reading my favorite pieces of writing. Peace with inner and outer conflict doesn't come naturally to most of us, myself so very much included.

I took a yoga class for the first time in some while the other day. And my body buzzed each time the instructor reminded us to let go of resistance. I think that's what writing is mostly about for me. It's letting go of resistance, and acknowledging what is. And most of the time, what is is more than tolerable. It's really very good. And that's the beginning and the end of it.