For the last few weeks, as
I finally launched my brand new career as an Occupational Therapy student, I
had a lot to think about. Making new friends among the twenty-five other OT
students in my class, figuring out how on earth I was going to stay on top of
all of my readings, assignments, quizzes, tests, & meetings, how I was
going to eke out some time to work out, & the list goes on & on (and
on, further than you could ever imagine).
You always think you’re
ready for these life transitions. You daydream. You make “schedule proposals”
in your journal. You make plans. You make promises to yourself & others.
And then, you begin the
transition. And suddenly, nothing looks at all the way you imagined it. This
isn’t necessarily a bad thing, but it’s a startling, unnerving, un-tethering
thing. Suddenly, your proposed schedules are so far off point that you may as
well run them through the shredder, along with your sanity. Suddenly, you are
busier than you could have ever imagined. Suddenly, you arrive home at five
o’clock, & you have no idea where the whole day has gone. Suddenly, one day
passing feels like an entire week. Suddenly, you are on a rollercoaster each
day: at the peaks, you (figuratively) scream out,
I CAN DO THIS.
And you believe it. In the
valleys, you wonder to yourself,
How will I ever accomplish all of this?
And you are genuinely
concerned.
Through all of these
feelings of excited chaos, there was one thing that kept running through my
mind. One thing that had absolutely nothing to do with OT school. Amidst the
quizzes stressed about & taken, the homework assignments tapped out in
wavering confidence… It was there, probing, annoying, begging to be answered.
How will I blog through all of this?
To most people, I’m sure
those closest to me included, this seems a bit of an inane worry.
Who cares about blogging? You are on the cusp of a
new career.
They might be saying. And
I know it’s true.
But there is something
that blogging does for me, that it has been doing for me for over 12 years. It
gives me something that is completely my own. A creative outlet. A way to
express myself. A way to save my life for all posterity. A way to scrapbook. A
way to reflect. A way to make everything feel special.
That is what blogging – at
its simplest core – has always meant to me.
But how am I to continue
this practice, with the mountainous to-do lists I now have teetering &
tottering on my psyche each day? How will I make the time?
The answer: I will
simplify this space.
No more “series” in which
I will attempt to tell myself what I am to write about that day. No more
scheduled monthly favorites or empties. No more scheduled editions of The Sunday Currently. No more telling
myself when a post MUST go up into cyberspace. No more being so serious about
it. No more attempts to convince myself that I need to make money off of my
blog. No more feeling inadequate if I don’t.
No more schedules and
pressures, in short.
This blog, from this point
forward (well, as far forward as I can see right now, which is about a day
& a half, truth be told), will just be… Me. A collection of photos &
memories & thoughts & questions.
That’s it.
This way, when I am struck
with that feeling to share (which happens a lot), when I am struck by the
beauty – sadness – wonder of something, I know I will have somewhere to put it
out into the universe, where like-minded or un-like-minded people may take it
in & do with it what they will.
For the longest while, I
was struggling with where this blog was going to go. I was having a bit of an
existential crisis:
Why do we share things on the Internet?
I wondered to myself (and
aloud to my closest people).
Why am I sharing that
photo on Instagram? What am I trying to prove? Who am I trying to be? Who am I
trying to impress? At my core, I realized I didn’t want to do ANY of those
things through social media, not really. When I did do it, I got really caught
up in it, wanting my life to appear perfect & beautiful & just-so. But
the emptiness that ends up consuming you when you go down that road – it’s
unbearable, like an ache that simply will not go away.
And the only way I knew
how to take myself out of that virtual race was to really cut back on posting
anything on the Internet. My Twitter account went silent. Days passed between
Instagram posts. Suddenly, I remembered what it felt like to simply be myself.
And it felt wonderful.
Slowly, I started sharing
again. Slowly, I figured out what I truly, when I was completely honest with myself, wanted to
put out into the virtual world. Slowly, I figured out that I could share,
without it changing who I was, what my goals were, & what my ideals &
morals & wishes were.
So, that brings me back to
this space, where I will share exactly what I feel. Exactly what I love.
Exactly what makes me sad, excited, melancholy, & overwhelmed. The only
thing I know completely is myself, and that is a growing relationship I’m
trying to nurture daily.
I’m not trying to sell
anything. I’m not trying to make myself appear perfect, wonderful, relevant, or
in-the-know. I just can’t do it anymore. I
just don’t want to do it anymore.
What I do want to do:
provide comfort to anyone who may derive comfort from my images or words.
Inspire those who may feel the same way as I do, to live their best lives &
to remember that putting their best foot forward each day is enough. Remind
everyone that things & life & love & photos & your house don’t
have to be perfect at every living moment. We’re all in this big race called
life together. And just being is enough. Just sharing is enough. There doesn’t
have to be some ulterior motive behind each post. Just sharing the joy you felt
– through a photograph and a few words – is enough.
I feel that if I don’t
restrain myself, I could sit at this laptop & type for three hours (at the
least) on this subject. But I also feel as though I’ve fully expressed myself
in these 1096 words (give or take).
The key to blogging
through school (and for years after that, hopefully) is simple: it lies in simplifying.
Being true to myself. Writing what I know. Writing what is true within me.
And really, didn’t I
always know that?
