The Me That I Am

 10 Responses »
Apr 182012
 

I’m having a pretty shitty Writerly Ego day. Actually, it’s kind of been a shitty Writerly Ego month, to be perfectly honest. And when I’ve shared this little emotional nugget with the BFF and The Husband, I’ve received a raised eyebrow and a “YOU HAVE A FUCKING AGENT” in response to my pity party. I get where it’s coming from. I am in a position a lot of writers would kill for. I have a wonderful agent who thinks me and my writing are worth something and deserve a place on the shelves at Barnes & Noble next to writers I admire like Jenny Lawson ,  Jill Smokler,  Robin O’Bryant,  Anna Lefler and Heather Armstrong.

It seems, however, that the platform I am currently standing on may not big enough to get there. Or maybe it just feels like that because I’m a writer and us artistic types are moody and overly emotional and maybe I just need a vodka-flavored cookie. Because really? I’m pretty proud of my little platform. I bust my ass for free because writing is who I am and what I do and the writing part is actually more important than getting paid part…for my sanity, at least. The bills sitting on my desk waiting to be paid, however, would rather I stop trying to stay Not Crazy and just get a fucking job that probably wouldn’t leave me the time to write for the awesome sites I contribute to.

I love sharing the funny on An Army of Ermas and Funny Not Slutty. Getting a spot on best-selling author Lissa Rankin’s Owning Pink site is something I will forever be proud of. I’ve been published on Hippocampus Magazine and almost fell over when StoryBleed accepted the same piece for publication on their site. And then what I’ve got going on over here on this little ol’ blog o’ mine. I’m working on getting my name out there and my writing on more outlets, but these things take time. And Platforms don’t build themselves overnight.

I’m by no means in the same stratosphere as the likes of Dooce or The Bloggess or Scary Mommy and that’s okay with me. I’m not trying to be them. Just me. And hopefully the Me that I Am will one day be enough.

Maybe this sounds like a Poor Me post, but I don’t mean it to. Instead, I wanted to let other aspiring writers out there know that the days of doubting yourself don’t end the moment you sign that contract with your dream agent. And, I’m sure my published writer friends will tell me that they sure as hell don’t end when a book deal is offered or the day their books were released or even the day they got their first glowing review. Because once someone Other Than You believes in your work, it’s not just your ego riding on how many readers connect with that essay you got placed in that literary magazine that you love or how many hits per month your blog is getting or how much better you feel just for having taken the jumbled words out of your head and making some sense of them in a new piece you just started.

Every level of success reached is both a validation of our talents and a new reason to Freak the Fuck out, but it’s a lesson in the writing life that I seem to keep having to be reminded of. Three months ago I was still waiting for the Moment All of My Dreams Would Come True and then the world turned upside down when they did because I signed with my agent. That singular moment took two years to make a reality. And you would be right of you guessed that the Freaking Out commenced after the shiny newness of my situation sunk in. It’s not just me and my ego on the table anymore. It’s me and my ego and my agent’s time and effort and enthusiasm and Belief in What I Am and Have Yet to Become.

But if I think back, I probably went through the same little Self-Doubt Fest when I was accepted onto my college newspaper’s staff and when I saw my first byline and when I was assigned to cover my first murder case at the city newspaper that hired me right out of college. And then again when I left the newspapers to freelance and when I started this blog and when I woke up this morning and my little girl told me that I’m the best mother in the world.

So maybe shitty Writerly Ego days are just part of the process and part of what makes us who — and what — we are. It’s our literary equivalent of the trap women set for men when we ask if This Dress Makes Us Look Fat because we really only need to be reminded that in their eyes we are beautiful no matter what how that dress fits us. My platform is what it is. My ass? Probably looks horrible in that dress. But it’s okay.

Because tomorrow I’m still going to write something. And someone is going to read it.

Yesterday’s Lessons

 2 Responses »
Apr 062012
 

Because I remember hiding in the pantry as a child to eat my feelings, I tell my daughter every day how much I love her.

Because my father died when I was 29, I finally understood my mother’s loss of both of her parents at the age of 19.

Because my family broke when we buried my father, I came to appreciate those connections that remain for the precious gifts they truly are.

Because I hated the girl/teenager/woman looking back at me from the other side of the mirror until recently, I tell my daughter she is healthy and strong before I tell her she is beautiful.

Because I grew up knowing I was the reason my parent’s got married, I didn’t have my first kiss until I was 15.

Because every time I thought He’s The One I was wrong, I said “I do” to the right man.

Because I was ashamed of my kinky curls, I silence my first thoughts and simply respond with a “thank you, baby,” every time my daughter tells me my hair is pretty.

Because I was left standing on my front porch waiting for my friends to pick me up for senior homecoming, I learned the importance of holding my head high.

Because I once wanted to die, I am grateful to live.

Because I still have dreams to make a reality, I wake up with a reason to try harder.

Because of yesterday, I have today.

 

***

This post was originally published here on AspiringMama one year ago in response to a writing prompt. The date may have changed, but the message remains the same. I just needed to remind myself.

When Everybody’s Looking

 1 Response »
Mar 212012
 

This is what I do when I think no one else is looking

 

You now how kids do that cute and totally obvious Turn On The Charm thing when they realize they have An Audience? Like this morning when Buttercup and I were sitting in the waiting room at the lab for my blood draw on Dr. Naturopath’s orders and she got all snuggly and I Love You Mom and Kissy Kissy and Sideways Looks and Silly Grins after noticing smiling strangers noticing her?

Sure, she loves me. Sure, she does that stuff when no one’s looking.

But she cranks the volume a bit on the charm factor when she feels the need to perform. I don’t make a big deal about it. Little girl is and always has been a bit of a drama princess, so I just snuggle closer, let her kiss and hug and I Love You to her heart’s content, knowing full well she’s going to go back to pretending to read the magazine she stopped pretending to read when the curtains went up announcing the beginning of her act as soon as the interesting kind strangers she’s hamming it up for pick up a magazine of their own.

It wasn’t until I logged on to my blog just to see what my stats were for the third time today and refreshed my email again and again and again with the hopes of a notification of a comment on whatever post it was that I had imagined might be the one Not Just I thought was Funny or Insightful or So Wonderfully Written that Someone Else would make it their mission to share it with the world that it occurred to me that I have been…acting.

Just like my daughter and her never-ending supply of affection she loves to show me whether or not anyone is looking that is only exaggerated when she realizes that someone actually is, I write because it’s who I am and I’m going to write whether or not anyone is reading, except that when I realize people are reading I might Force the Funny a bit more than necessary or self-edit something out of a post I wouldn’t have even thought about before because I know you are there.

I used to write stuff like this and this and this. And I still do. The difference is that before I wrote for myself in the hopes of getting an audience. Now I write in the hopes of growing the one I have. I still write for myself, but somehow it seems different.

I wonder if I’m trying too hard.

Then again, I might just be looking at this all wrong. Buttercup loves me no matter who is or isn’t looking and I write no matter who is or isn’t reading. The difference is that she doesn’t care either way.

And this is where I realize how smart my kid is.

As long as you don’t make a big deal about it and just let me get this little bit of Cute and Totally Obvious Turn on the Charm out of my system, I promise to go back to pretending to read that magazine and making up stories just because I can.

Self-Loathing and Chocolate

 29 Responses »
Feb 032012
 

 

I didn’t realize I missed smoking cigarettes until I found myself waiting for my husband to leave for work this afternoon. I had a bag of food hiding in the back of the Yukon with taboo things like Reese’s Pieces and Cheeze-Its for me to bury my feelings with once the coast was clear.

But it’s not completely. Nick Jr. is on and I can say with absolute confidence that the coast is definitely preoccupied. At least I hope she is.

I’m 34 going on the fifteen-year-old in my head. I may call myself a recovered bulimic and, more amazingly, may actually believe it more often than not, but the truth is I’m more of a non-practicing bulimic than anything else. That, my friends, pretty much leaves me with nothing else to describe myself as but a binge eater.

Or a binge eater who only thinks about throwing up.

No, wait. I’d be more accurate if I called myself a Binge Eater who Obsessively Works Out, Avoids All Processed Foods and Sugars, and Puts on a Great Show for the Public for Weeks On End Before Secretly Falling Apart Inside of my Head and Diving Head First into a Pool of Self-Loathing and Chocolate in a Misguided Attempt to Make Myself Feel Better….Who Only Thinks About Throwing Up.

Yeah…

That’s exactly it.

Funny how I don’t see that listed as a condition in any medical journals. Also? It would probably look awesome on a T-shirt.

I was fine until I stepped on the scale yesterday at the doctor’s office. I was there to discuss my need for a higher dose of anti-depressants and what I thought was just a bad habit but is actually an OCD condition called dermatillomania because normal is the new boring, and of course I had to step on the scale before it was time to get down to business. I won’t say what the number was because Ill just trigger myself again, but I will tell you that after giving up (until today, that is) all grains, all forms of sugar including maple syrup and honey, all gluten, soy, and dairy (the last one is allergy-related) I’m down one pound and — even more depressingly — am just nine under what I was the day I gave birth 4.5 years ago.

In the interest of full disclosure, I should be smaller and happier and thinner and more confident and smaller. And happier. I’ve been working out (until a few weeks ago) daily, eating only fresh fruits and vegetables and quality meats and juicing so much spinach I may need to get myself a girlfriend named Olive. Instead of listening to the countless media messages that tell me I should be disappearing before my very eyes, my body is instead working hard to prove it is an exception to the rule. There are doctors and unexplained weight gain and and hair loss and tests for various autoimmune diseases and lifestyle changes (that don’t normally include Cheeze-Its) and more waiting and wondering and woe is me.

Sometimes I’m able to convince myself that it’s all about health and not the number on the scale and that health is more important than weight and that I need to concentrate on how good I feel and not how I look when I get off of the elliptical.

And then I see the number that isn’t supposed to matter and am reminded that it does indeed when it’s not moving in the direction in which I had hoped. It matters much more than it should.

Had I not quit smoking, I’d have lit up and celebrated the fact that I wasn’t binging. I would have not distracted my daughter with television so that I could eat the feelings I am not able to process until the new medication takes my brain to a happy(er) place. I would not be just thinking about throwing up.

Instead, I’d be out in the backyard on the patio, the sounds of Nick Jr. carrying through the glass door, as I smoked away my anxieties and smiled smugly about being stronger than my own mind.

On Choosing Water

 2 Responses »
Jan 062012
 

The difference between blood and water

lies not in the consistency, but in the

glorious truth that water comes with

a choice.

Blood binds me, ties me to

nothing

and to

everything.

But it binds me, nonetheless.

Blood comes with baggage, with history,

with future, and with family arguments,

most of which are held in my head.

Blood comes with love and with pain and with

laughter

and

tears

and strangers who once were more

until they decided that sometimes

blood just isn’t thick enough.

Blood comes with a heavy responsibility

to remain loyal to what was in order

to maintain appearances because

it’s just easier to lie to ourselves

with strained smiles for our public

and save the bitching for when

the appropriate backs

are turned.

Blood comes with a silence so loud

that we must laugh louder

to drown out the sound of

words left unspoken.

So I choose water when blood remains

the only tie.

Because sometimes, blood just isn’t

thick enough.

***

I originally posted this poem in January of 2010 and came across it in my archives while on the hunt to find words worthy of a repost. Maybe I’ll be funny next week. For now, this is the inside of my head before the Prozac kicks in.

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