Becoming Home

I long to have time, yet when I sit alone to write, I feel like I am frantic about everything but myself. I am defined by cleaning, book clubs, food, slumber and an unending task list I created at midnight. I put things like writing, reading, looking for inspiration on the non-required and thus "unimportant" list. My creative self feels like an old rusty box , without a seam. Is my mind what is locked up and if so, where is the opening?

This month or maybe just this moment I am struck by my parrot-like need to be accepted. This runs to the point where someone opens their mouth and I attempt to look more attentive and fear that I am not looking most attentive. I am deaf to what they might actually be saying and how I might actually respond. Exhausting, right? (see I am still looking for your feedback here). What will you say next, what will I say, then what will you think of what I say, runs like a rats wheel in my head. I long to "borrow Frost's lines here and scream that what I want "Is not my love back in copy speech/But counter-love, original response." I want to hear you and say something, as a person with opinions and ideas and dreams!

My best friend recently expressed this conflict well, by discribing oneself walking down the street and seeing someone come towards you who you know. All of the sudden you are thrown from your world to the moment of thinking, what should I say, should I talk or ignore them, because the messiness and imprefection of spontaniously trying to be someone is wearisome.

So how does one step out of other's shadows and show up as themselves to anyone walking past? My son on Friday said, "Lets go to the pool, that's a good idea," all in one breath. I love his simple confidence in himself! Despite how we try to coorce him, he rules his world. My husband believes I give too many explanations and that I should just decide and declare my conclusion. My therapist asked me to write "If your life could be about anything, what would I have it be about." My patent answer is "Creating spaces where people can authentically interact."

Is that possible here on this blog? Probobly not, because I am the only one speaking, however, I am going to open up pages for you to comment about various topics, such as "You Life Work," "Unanswered Questions," "Brilliant Ideas," "A fear," "Something no one knows," "A regret," "A great moment," etc.

Maybe for now it would be easier to say that my life work is in "Looking for places where I and others can be themselves." Do such places exist, when we are not alone? I recently wrote a short story called, "The Spanking" and read it to a group with great trepidation, fearing they would pitty me. The opposite happened, as everyone commented that I expressed their childhood fears and experiences in my work. It shocked me that my story acted as a connector, rather than a means of further isolating myself. Take a read and see how it hits you. (See Below.)

In reading the opening of Emerson's "Self-Reliance," Emerson says that speaking your mind is critical to life, and without it you will forever watch others steal your voice and claim it as their own. So here I blog, to have a voice. I don't know how I feel about readers, because they can act as critics and rejectors, but I am hoping to find an authentic space to hear myself above the noise, and I hope others will find that as well.

My goal in blogging is to explore the world through fresh eyes and "help-myself" (for now) to grow past fear and judgement to be more whole. I am going to put forth goals and challenges in an effort to administer therapy and cure myself once and for all from everything from insecurity, to muteness, to self-sabatage. I want to move forward in becoming myself and living towards what I love.