How to start these things? That's always the worst part.
For a book-obsessed girl in her early 20s on her way to take the world by storm, I was ready at the keyboard and determined to see and learn everything.
That was 4 years ago.
I only wrote like I wanted for the first 3 months. After that, things got boring for a while, and then very stressful, and too confusing to make sense of, and then too conflicting to talk about, and then too shameful to admit. I wrote here and there, and things got a lot better. I made sense of them, I found my voice, I had the best times of my life and I discovered groundbreaking things, but some of them were mine.
And I didn't keep writing. Not steadily. I wrote on and off on the blog. I wrote on and off in my journal. I wrote on scraps of paper and taped them on my wall, I collected scraps of paper to glue to my journal so I would only have to write a few short lines next to it. This way, I'd be able to document everything and look back on it later, when I had time to write. Once I had time to breathe.
But after 4 years of that, 3 countries lived in and 2 visits home and then 2 visits to the city that became second home, I felt like a million scattered pieces of paper.
Still, I had my keyboard, and I'd picked up a microphone along the way. I had started a podcast during one of my motivated periods and I spent more time making episodes, doing interviews, talking about the things on my mind and what I'd seen and learned while crawling over the bits of earth I'd traveled to.
But again, I was confronted with my shameful parts. I was so scared to offend people and scared of being judged. Often, the cultures we grow up in are strict in their social rules and expectations, and those can feel restrictive when you've outgrown some of those beliefs and discovered freedom.
My thoughts were usually confronting for others and controversial in nature. Although I tried to tell it from my honest point of view and remained open to factual corrections about it / respectable debate, people were angry. Besides, I'd been on the road for so long now, meeting new faces every 3 to 6 months, all of my strongest connections were online. Everyone I loved was in another time zone. There were many feels during that time.
That was a few months ago. During the worst of it, I was at one of my best friend's mom's house in England, staying with her for a while- just because. I would cry on the phone to my boyfriend about the comments I received on a recent article or episode or Facebook Post; I spent a lot of time writing in my journal to try to make sense of things or just going for walks to think.
Karla looked out for me and told me her honest opinion over and over again, which is exactly what I find security in and what I needed at the time. After spending a few weeks with her on 2 different occasions, she had helped me turn my head around.
I have to say, I also hear Ru Paul's voice in the back of my head telling me to tell my story, make people laugh, don't try to polish or present yourself in a certain way to the world - just be yourself, be vulnerable, use your strengths in every challenge and attack it with your own personality, shamelessly promote yourself whenever you can, and don't take yourself too seriously.
Oh and one more person, who always tells me to keep writing. Thank you, Mrs. Labrousse, my 6th grade Language Arts teacher who is a Facebook friend. I love that for us.
Now I know that I can be myself, I don't have to be afraid of showing up exactly how I show up, I don't have to pretend to have the answers or want to have the answers. I can give my very best, have the most fun, do the most good where it feels right, and even keep some secrets to myself if I want. I know that no matter what people say about me, they do not know me. Not like I know myself. And I am not afraid.
I've recently relaunched the podcast, but the blog that came from all the way from the early days and had evolved into a branded, matching copy of the podcast I haven't touched yet. Until I received a comment on one of my photos online about how being myself had inspired a good friend of mine. He said that he still checks the blog and reads it, even though I haven't written in months or even regularly before then. What more did I need? The itch has been at me to write for publish. I always have ideas for books floating around in my head, but this week it's actually 4 mini-books, so I know I'm ready.
Hence, here I am.
Every time I stop writing I always say I'm sorry I did it. But there's no real need for regret right now, because it's something I can so easily remedy. Why lament that I didn't do more of something if I can just do more of it starting now?
Note to self: don't worry about the negative comments, they're not about you, and don't count every view like your self esteem depends on it.
Signing off,
Alison
