A blogger comes home

by craftydame via Flickr

Hi, friends. I believe an explanation is in order.

As Ernest Hemingway put it, “There is nothing to writing. All you do is sit down at a typewriter and bleed.” Since I was already experiencing significant blood loss due to my father's death, adjusting to a new job and home, and the rapid failure of a new relationship, let's just say that writing became far too painful for me to pursue. To be honest, I'm afraid that writing is still painful for me, but that brings me to my next point.

Over the last month or so, I've really started to examine my life and ask myself what needs to change in order for me to be living the life I really want. 2013 was definitely not my year and I want 2014 to be much, much better. After listening to and reading Brene Brown talk about vulnerability as well as other happiness related articles and books (like The Happiness Project), I'm convinced that I need to start choosing love over fear consistently.

As the child of a hoarder, all I've known has been survival mode. I just needed to get through high school to get out of my mother's hoard. That survival instinct stayed with me through the years: I just needed to get through college, I just needed to get a job to support myself, I just needed to get through grad school, I just needed to land a professional job, I just needed to adjust to living on the west coast, I just needed to get over the loss of my father, I just needed to find the perfect partner, I just needed to be driven by fear. In the process of having my survival blinders on, I've pushed aside a large number of things that have brought me great joy in life: writing, art, exploring new topics just for the hell of it. I got really amazingly good at denying myself things out of fear of being distracted too much from what I "should" be doing as A Very Responsible Adult. This barebones living has brought me to my present condition: doing all of the "right" things, but not being particularly happy.

And so, I've decided to choose love and the things that I love in an attempt to find peace and happiness within myself. My desire to write about it is not just because of my undeniable inclination to be a writer, but because "... as we let our own light shine, we unconsciously give others permission to do the same. As we are liberated from our own fear, our presence automatically liberates others." I think Marianne Williamson was on to something there and I hope my return to blogging can ignite untold lights in my readers.

Happy holidays and expect to be hearing more from me regularly in the coming year.