The Babes and the Wolf

A funny little thing...

I originally wrote this as my intro. But realizing that it was maybe a little too long and involved to be an effective intro, I'm re-posting it as an entry.

The original entry date is 6/9/15.

**************************************

So, here I go again. I've never been very good at blogging. Every few years, I spend a few days diligently setting up a new account: finding pretty pictures and tweaking my profile; thoughts full of all manner of personally meaningful shyte. Then I finally hunker down in front of my computer and... Nothing. Or a whole bunch of something that just isn't good enough. I clamp up with anxiety: berating and emotionally abusing myself. Or write a whole entry, reading and re-reading, and critiquing until its dead and the words are a meaningless static buzzing in my head. Eventually I lose interest, leaving it smoldering amongst the million other fires I happen to be tending at the moment.

When I started my first blog by this title, I had this dream of writing something that would be meaningful to other people. To chronicle my experiences as a young twenty-something living with chronic illness and, at the time, in the process of becoming a mother; as a person just coming out of several years of inexpressibly painful and terrifying experiences and learning to live my life again. Writing has always been my front line mode of expression. It was as essential to my being as breathing. It was the basis of my sense of self worth and esteem, the bedrock of my reality. But at some point between the symptoms and the treatments (which I'm sure will come out in some level of fuller detail); between the crippling anxiety and the social and emotional self-isolation that followed; that most essential mode of expression dried up. Words were not sufficient to express my reality. So much went unsaid. And even writing fiction (my first and greatest love) became a near impossible task. Over the years, two things happened. I started to get my shit together, investing in myself, building a future for myself. But I also gave up on myself as a writer, telling myself that I just don't have it anymore. I should focus on more realistic things. Even then, the agony of feeling artistically neutered would drive me into periods when I would write a few small pieces and then give up the ghost again, so to speak. Even when I did write, I was too shit-scared to share any of it.

Something funny happened a number of weeks ago. Whilst completing my grad school application, I found myself having to answer the question: "Why do you want to go into social work? What personal, professional, or volunteer experiences have influenced this decision?" Basically, a question that made it impossible for me not to talk about my experiences. So, after agonizing over how to verbalize my answer for nigh three months, I finally dug my heels in and forced myself to write about it. Then forced myself to write it over because it sucked. And in its wake flowed a torrential flood of poetry, prose, and an over whelming desire to keep going. That night, I read to my fiance the first two pieces of my writing that he'd been privy to in over four years. The next night, I read another one. And the night after: two more. Finally, I went looking for somewhere exactly like Writing.com. And now I'm here.

Long story short(ish), this blog is a very different beast. This blog is for me. Its basically a personal challenge and a place for me to force myself to write (and share my writing) even when I don't think I have anything particularly creatively impassioned to say. My goal is to write two posts per week about something - anything. As long as I keep the words flowing.

If you're reading this: Thanks for stopping by. I hope you find something enjoyable. If not: it doesn't much matter one way or another.