I’ve been hiding.
In winter, we called it hibernating – given the amounts of snow we had, and few things to do, it was a great excuse to stay holed up and rest. Just when the urge to be social again hit us, a bunch of crazy stuff happened that made me pull back again. We started making plans and seeing friends, but emotionally and virtually (on blogs and social network sites) I’ve retreated.
I questioned who my friends are and who could be trusted. I questioned myself, as to how I felt less myself and why – was it an issue of struggling to maintain self identity in a marriage already? Was it post wedding depression, and would it go away? I don’t know, and I may not for a while.
(However, for the record, married life really DOES rock! Just to be clear, none of these are marriage issues – they are the “sort out my head” issues and having never been married before, these questions come up.)
But while I used to come here and spill out my heart, I stopped. I feared the consequences – as someone who is likely a facebook friend betrayed me. I feared being hurt or hurting my friends in some way. I feared my mother was reading (while I always keep in mind that a parent or employer could read this, I try not to restrict myself as much as I have been).
Blogging is a part of me – typing out the entries is my therapy. If I want to (and I do) someday make money from any creative endeavors on my part, I need to sell my soul. (I love Danielle LaPorte, though I am not taking that workshop.) If I don’t, I’m just imitating everyone else who inspires me. I look around at what others do, and feel that they stole a concept that was going to be my great enlightened moment in the near future. And now that they are doing it, they probably do it better than me, so I need another idea. Yeah. This has been the crazy circular logic that – along with my fears – has had me stuck in one place.
And here we are in spring, where the spring weather is STARTING to make an appearance, but even on the cold days I see the buds in the trees and bushes, the cherry blossoms, the forsythia bushes. In true stereotypical fashion, spring brings a new hope.
I need to let go of the how, and focus on the why. I want to share more, even the ugly messy parts, because when I do I find a new level of connection with people. I’ve blogged while crying and planning to erase it the next day, when I get supportive comments saying that others have felt exactly the same. This is my soul, my truth, and I need to keep sharing it. I can’t always share it in the real world or in person, if only for lack of thinking fast on my feet, but this is how I do it. This is MY space, my identity, and I’ll keep it despite however many blogs/sites we may have at one time 😛
Kinda crazy, but a big part of what prompted this entry was a simple encounter at lunchtime with a coworker. We were having a great chat about TV shows, when he stated that he stopped watching one because there were scenes of two guys making out. I was offended by his statement, and replied that it wasn’t a problem with our TV watching group, as some of them are gay. Maybe I could have said something better, maybe not. After the shock passed, it made me so thankful for my community of friends and their lack of homophobia. It made me think about how my coworker would probably never become friends with the gay couple we watched that same TV show with, and it made me realize just how much he’s missing out by that.
What it comes down to is that I am so restricted in how I can be “myself” in the office environment, that I absolutely have to take advantage of the ways that I can, that I have to use outlets like this to bare my soul, and that – especially as a woman married to a man in this hetero-normative society, I have to make sure that my thoughts on human rights, sexual identity, and such that I take for granted among like-minded friends are shared with those who are NOT in that mindset. It’s time to shake the world up a little bit more. It’s time to be less afraid. It’s not about confrontation, it’s about being more open about myself and my viewpoint so that people don’t assume my thoughts for me.
It’s going to piss some people off, it’s going to hurt some people. I hurt someone with my post on my friend’s suicide, as someone who knew her protested loudly that it wasn’t suicide, I was wrong for saying it was, and I was offending her family. It was upsetting at the time, but now I can only think of how hurt this woman truly was when she eventually was told the truth, by someone other than me. I still don’t regret posting it.
Fuck the haters, fuck the cowardly internet stalkers, fuck the homophobes. If the only thing I have to lose is the support of people I don’t agree with? Then I have absolutely nothing to lose and we all have something to possibly gain.
k8et's ramblings 