I'm not even sure what I want to say here, so bear with me, okay? By the end of this post, something that resembles a theme should emerge. Then again, I haven't been having any luck lately with things like "being able to form sentences" and "making sense when I talk". I would promise you it will all be worth it, but honestly, I can't even do that right now.
I know that I should write a little every day. Just a little something. Even if it's something weird I heard on the bus (alright, I could fill volumes with that and really, I think we've all heard enough from the delightful people who use public transportation, don't you?). I get a little anxious and can't sleep well when I don't write. So I know what you're thinking: then just WRITE ALREADY. This isn't difficult. You just write something down. And then hit "publish". And then you can sleep at night. I mean, REALLY, kiddo, this isn't hard.
Except it doesn't always work. In fact, it almost never works. So, it's something I need to get better at. I know it doesn't have to be fancy. It just has to be something. I know it can be done. I know bloggers who do it regularly. They just review their day and then write something. It's that simple. I used to think that was the most difficult part: being interesting every day of my life. Really, though, the most difficult part is making the time to write. I mean, if you're lacking for material, for God's sake, there's a whole INTERNET out there to be inspired by if nothing cool happened that day. Hey, LoLo! Ever heard of a little thing called GOOGLE, the magical place where you can LITERALLY type the words "SOMETHING INTERESTING" and something interesting will LITERALLY appear? Yeah, well, I'm not so good at making time to do that. That's really all this non-writing is: one big suckitude at time management.
I've been getting better at at least thinking I should blog more. For example, before drifting off to sleep the other day, I thought about the TSA guy who suggested my not wanting to go through the full body x-ray was unpatriotic in some way, and my next thought was: Oh, shoot. I TOTALLY could have written a blog post about that. Damn. That's another day down the drain. But, hey! At least I got to the step where I thought about writing it down.
I didn't even come here to write all that stuff up above.
This is what I came to write:
Often when I feel like I am the only one suffering through something, I find out I'm not. All it takes is for me to open my mouth and say "I can't even believe I am struggling with this, but here it is." And I lay it out, and it turns out that someone ALWAYS has a corollary to that struggle.
It's so difficult for me to admit when I'm feeling less than. And not just because I live in a fairly affluent city and I have a job (several in fact) and a loving partner and access to good food and clean water and because what kind of a douche bag complains when 95% of her life is so easy? But it's all relative, I keep telling myself. Just because you're not dying in a refugee camp doesn't mean that your suffering isn't valid. And the more I talk to people, the more I see that EVERYONE, men and women alike, everyone is keeping it all inside because they don't want to seem ungrateful, or nit-picky, or like Debbie Downer at the party. Our privilege (at least in North America) as some of the luckiest people on earth and/or our shame about feeling like we're less than are keeping all of our mouths sealed about what we struggle with and I don't think it's healthy. So I'm totally volunteering to be the weirdo at the party. I am, right now, officially standing on the coffee table and motioning to the DJ to turn down the music and I am saying: Hi, my name is Lauren and sometimes I struggle with having so much and still feeling unfulfilled.
I was recently invited to belong to a book club, and when I got to the first meeting, a few of the women (who I have gotten to know on a casual basis over the years) jabbed me in the ribs and asked me in that knowing way if I was "ready" for bookclub. It could get real emotional in there, they warned. COOL, I thought. FINALLY. A place where I could get my cry on. And here in the frozen-hearted Northwest no less! After we DID all get our cry on, I approached one of the women in the kitchen and whispered ,"Why did everyone think this was going to scare me away?" And she said, "Well, you don't always want to dump all your problems on your girlfriends when you see them, right?" And I just stared at her for a second and said, "WELL THEN I HAVE BEEN DOING IT ALL WRONG because all I DO is dump on my girlfriends. Isn't that what girlfriends are for!!?"
And were this blog a sitcom, this is the part where I would wink at the audience and say "Am I right, ladies?" and then clink wineglasses with a bunch of women wearing fuzzy-toed high heels and tight fitting rhinestoned t-shirts that said things like "Loves to Shop" and "Diva".
I just wanted to say to everyone out there who's holding it in for fear of looking like an idiot in front of their friends: let it go. Just do it. You have permission to come here, at least, and vomit all over the place. I will totally hold your hair back and hand you a warm towel afterwards.
Comments
Love this, especially that last line.
LoLo- what you have here may be a new genre, puke fiction, an emesis-nemesis, or something of the like. Good concept. I enjoyed this. It’s always something…-j