One tidbit I have not shared with you all yet is my recent struggles with reading. I have struggled with it my whole life to varying degrees, but found ways to get along in this print dependent culture. Then a few months back I started to realize just how much stress it was now causing. To be blunt, I can’t really read for content right now. I can read the words, they make sense but they don’t stick. This has made the transformation I am going through more difficult, not being able to read about it, understand it, has contributed to the isolation I feel while on this beautiful journey...kinda like going to the South of France and not having anyone to share it with.
So to set myself the task of reading a months worth of blog entries every day was a DOUBLE TRIPLE QUADRUPLE whammy. I figured that because it is my own writing, this info is already inside me, I am just taking a Bernice refresher. Well it took me 3 1/2 hours to get through the firs 1/12th of my blog. YIKES!
I did mess around on you tube for bit looking up Billy Bragg songs, inspired by a lyric I found sneakily buried in one of the entries. This is the struggle with reading, staying on track, not getting lost in tangent thoughts and research. I eventually made it to the end, but this reading thing is a real pain in the ass!
What can I say about the first month? It was a little dry. LoL I am remembering a couple of people who told me they tried to read the blog but never continued because they got overwhelmed by starting at the beginning. They didn’t say it out right but I have a feeling they lost interest, and I can see why. At this point this project was still something outside of myself, like work. Work I enjoyed, but still work. I remember at this time really going through such sadness about my break up with Jeremy, I remember imagining that this was leaking all over the place, that when I looked back it would be so obvious that I was healing my heart,. Other than a couple of explicit posts I was keeping it all very professional... meaning I hadn’t begun to leak yet! I can be so friggen stoic, I know that this often even comes across as cold. I know I am a passionate loving womyn, so I expect the hot-cold thing must be hard on those around me. My hope is that I am doing better with this now... I am pretty sure I am.
Something else I saw when reading this first month was how excited and driven I was in the ! Gosh it is hard for me to imagine having as much energy as I did a year ago. Right now just wrapping the project up seems a feat. Starting it, building the blog, climbing Pulpit Rock, flying off to California was so much! I have to say I am proud of myself. In those days it was only sheer determination that kept me going, no one even knew I existed out there in blog land... wow.
Memory Lane is a trip.
“Have you ever truly believed you were being honest and later realized you were not?” is the question in 12 days journal #347
ok..question..you seem to have a desire to force or cajole yourself into doing something you don't really have a complete desire to do..like write posts every single day. as if forcing yourself is somehow good for you or is going to make you want to do something more..
ReplyDeleteam i perceiving correctly here??
kahlil gibran writes: 'love shuns a demand..'
what is driving the demands you place on yourself?
[do what thou will shall be the whole of the law..]
K
Good question, really. Sometimes it does feel like self violence, the way I have driven myself on this project AND in many other areas of my life. I recognize that I have an issue with clearly seeming how much I push myself with finding balance.
ReplyDeleteSo why am I doing it? Because I committed to it and sometimes things I commit to and not something I want to do in the short term, there is no instant gratification. There is a long term goal I want to achieve though, I am choosing long term over short term.
I have a story about myself that I don't finish things I start. Whether this is true or not I will have some big ass proof in 11 more days that I do indeed finish things, HARD things. If for no other reason that to dispel this falsehood I still use against myself this blog will be a big shiny YES YOU FINISH THINGS!!!
As for what drives these demands, I have a hundred answers, many rea,l many delusional. I am letting go of what that drive is until this is done. THEN I promise I will be taking a LONG look at what this project, year, and behaviour have to teach me about myself.
As me again tomorrow, I might have a different answer.
Would it be more enjoyable to have a loved one read them with/to you?
ReplyDeleteAnd my two tid-bits - I think we all struggle with ourselves to do things ... and in a society so centered on instant gratification, and what we FEEL like doing, you can take pride in seeing a long term project like this through. ...(but we all agree, no 'shoulding' on ourselves! :D)
ok..i get the commitment/discipline thing..as a songwriter i struggle with it too of course. this is how i'm understanding the issue these days: i guess i'm afraid that my deepest motivation is sometimes being subverted by too much costume and outsourcing...and so when i see it in reflection i call it in the hopes that this will keep me honest too.
ReplyDeletei believe there is a lot to be said for immediate healthy satisfaction of needs wants and wishes and that suppressing these leads to heart trouble and unbalanced behavior.
the world as it is doesn't always make this simple easy or clear though, quite the opposite in fact.
personally i think we've learned and pressured ourselves to do so very many weird wonderful and not so wonderful things quite simply to get energy love and attention [but preferably the right kind at the right time and in the right way..] in fact most of us seem to want it to always be perfect.
which begs the question..is this even possible? and if it's not then why are we so desirous of this? personally i think it's enormously annoying that it would seem that no matter what i do the universe nevertheless constantly but inconsistently gives me only randomly and intermittently perfect. like what on earth is up with that?
nature is very specific. figs are a perfect food. horses don't mate with cows. i guess the point i'm trying to make is that when we let our mind over-ride our will/intuition/gut feelings etc, we are missing the mark...we're breeding donkeys. when we let these naturally find their balance in the heart then it's entirely possible to come from a place of love [which i'm guessing we all know can be felt so there's really no second guessing it]..so if you're not totally loving it, maybe that's your feedback system's way of telling you that you need to find a way do it differently or just do something else..and then [this part is purely hypothetical..] maybe your commitment will just grow up naturally around you like grass around a tree.
k
Apparently, I am weird...I didn't find the first month dry, or I might not have committed to following the blog and taking the journey with you in the first place. LOL. The human heart, the human condition, having out there and expressed honestly...that is endlessly fascinating to me, how we are all the same, how we are all different, what we value or don't value, how we think, how we feel... None of that will ever be dry for me. You would have to be the kind of person who never gives themselves over to introspection for me to find it dry. LOL.
ReplyDelete