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Texts 12/19/17

Ugh. Painful

I think that could work

I’m upset by this

We will toast to your health on Weds.

Dinner was prolonged. I will miss the minimalist tree.

No need to worry ever!!!

Doing alright

:)

[katescripted]

I want to write something so simply about love or about pain that even as you are reading  you feel it and thought it be my story it will be common, thought it be singular  it will be known to you so that by the end you will think-- no, you will realize-- that it was all the while yourself arranging the words, that it was the time words that you yourself, out of your own heart  had been saying.

I Want to Write Something So Simply by Mary Oliver

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Sounds Around Me #1

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The March of my Mother

I’m thinking a lot about my mom today. I’m home sick with the remnants of a flu-like thing and couldn’t join the Women’s March as I planned. Throughout the day I checked-in on my social media feeds, seeing the pictures my friends were posting across the country, and finding myself thinking about what my mom would have thought of this. 

It had dawned on me earlier today that I am getting around the age when she was diagnosed with multiple sclerosis. I was in third grade at the time and I can remember her showing us the x-rays of her brain and spine one evening, holding them up to the living room light, my sister and I giggling because her eyes looked so strange in x-ray. Little did we know that for the next 18 years, this disease would carve it’s way into our family in both overt and insidious ways. My mother, a shy and unassuming person, endured pain and heartache that I cannot begin to imagine - and, not to sugar coat it, her endurance was messy, complicated, and human.

One thing my mother wanted early in her disease was to work. Before she married she did administrative work, and, being the perfectionist that she was, had been exceptionally good at it. When I was born, she became a stay-at-home mother; but, as my sister and I were in late elementary school, and with the diagnoses of her disease, she wanted to get out. We lived on a dirt road with very few neighbors nearby; and, naturally, she felt that, with her mobility ebbing away, she was feeling trapped. My mom and dad argued about her working again - my dad opposed to the idea. It always came down to “us girls” and “you’re not healthy enough”. I feel like this argument lasted for awhile, or one that caused enough stir for it be so clear in my memory.

One afternoon, I came home from school to find my mother sitting at the kitchen table just staring out our bay window. She wasn’t crying, just still. It was unsettling because I had never seen her that way before. I asked her what was wrong and she said to me sternly: “Katie, when you grow up, you make sure you are independent. You make sure you have your own money, and if you want to go to work, you go to work. Don’t you marry too soon and have kids. I’m stuck here.” I remember being kind of scared, giving her a timid hug, and telling her ‘I love you’, before letting her be. At the time, I felt ashamed and even a little mad thinking that my mother was resentful for having my sister and I, that she never wanted us. As I got older, I came to understand what she meant.

Mom, while conservative in the sexual revolution side of feminism and never uttered that she was a feminist, would talk a lot about how women should be working and that there should be equal rights in the workplace. She would always talk about her feminist ideas with minimizers to distance herself from being a “feminist”. In our small town, I’m sure such notions were considered radical - even in the 90′s. And she admired notable women like Joni Eareckson Tada, Eleanor Roosevelt, and Oprah. “Oh, I still believe in shaving my armpits and wearing a bra. I don’t think we should start looking like men, but women can work. Don’t let anyone tell you you can’t do something.” That was always the message; and indeed it has stuck with me. No one will tell me, that because I’m a woman, I can’t work or do the things I love or be the mother I want to be. There is no question. My mom - whether she was aware of it or not - was fighting the rural patriarchy. 

As the years went on, my mom’s disease got considerably worse. Procedures and treatments were astronomically expensive, all of them still new and uncertain to even work. It was hard disappointment after disappointment when each one didn’t improve her symptoms. She tried everything from injections to honey bee stings. What I disliked almost as much as the failures of these methods, was the way her doctors would talk down to her. At times she would scream in frustration, usually with the phrase “I’M IN PAIN!” and literally be told “Don’t be hysterical” or “Calm down”. If my mother had been male, would they have listened and would her treatment have been different? I am aware treatment and financial limitations factor in here. Yet, behaviors like referring to her as if she wasn’t in the room, I can’t help but wonder as an adult woman and have experienced it for myself. Gas-lighting would make anyone go mad.

 And there was always the anxiety over insurance companies, their constant rejections on what they’d cover. When I was in college and my mother was then in a nursing home, I recall her electric wheelchair was broken. It would cost more to fix than replace. The insurance company rejected paying for a new wheelchair because, in their ghoulish way, didn’t see the point as her condition showed no signs of improving. Without a wheelchair, my mother would be unhealthily and cruelly confined to her bed. I remember this because my dad had to fight for it for quite sometime and it was months before some coverage for the new chair came through. I don’t know the specifics, but I feel like my mother’s quality of life could have been vastly (and humanely) improved had there been better healthcare in this country. 

And even my mother, a religious woman, realized the potential of stem cell research, still in its early days at the time. For years she’d been against it, believing it was killing unborn babies, but, in her last years, came to understand more about what it was and meant. Stem cell research was giving hope to children with cancer and people with horrible chronic diseases like her own. If such research could prevent others from experiencing horrible diseases like her own, then this advance in science was a gift from God.

I know my mother would have marched because today’s march signified every progress and human right this country fought for, that there is no way we can go back, and that we will push back and push forward. I don’t think it’s melodramatic to say it is literally life and death if we turn back history.  The Affordable Care Act, for example, is not the greatest in some respects - believe me, I have experienced them - but I refuse to go back to a time where I could be rejected coverage because of a pre-existing condition or pay more because I’m a woman, or just have no insurance at all. I want to progress and improve on what we have so someone like my mother, my family, could have less strain and a quality of life.

I don’t want to go back to a time where discriminatory language and behaviors are considered ok and the norm. I don’t want to go back to a time where women, like my mother, had to insist that they are valuable enough to work, and to get paid appropriately for that work. No person should ever feel that they are trapped, like my mother felt, because of antiquated societal views.  If you want an entertaining spin on that, watch an episode or two of Downton Abbey. Are we going back to that? Are we going back to a society that is cruel to someone like poor Ethel?

Words do matter. Those who say they don’t? Well, look at how they affect our kids, or how they affect your actions. If words don’t matter, then why do people get riled up over insults to an opposing sports team? If words don’t matter, then would you say Jesus’ words had no impact? If words don’t matter, then why do we have an entire amendment protecting our words? There is responsibility, consequences, and power in our words, so they should be considered carefully and intelligently - and we should hold our world leaders to the highest of standards. My mother, the perfectionist secretary, would grill me on my words, and would probably have me edit this blog post a zillion times over if she saw it. 

I am not at all naive and realize life is not simple and cookie cutter. Policies require listening, dialogue, and understanding of life’s nuances. Dismissing people as a general this or that does not help anyone, and does not allow the opportunity for empathy and change.

I wanted to march today, but instead I voice my march here. I would have wanted to march with my mother, to let her know: we are not going back to that place. We are not going to get stuck. We are moving forward.

For everyone that was out there marching today in the streets - my love.

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I was forty years old, and I'd invested a lot of time and effort into something that didn't seem to be working. But the thing that got me through that moment, and any other time I've felt stuck, is to remind myself that it's about the work. Because if you're worrying about yourself - if you're thinking: 'Am I succeeding? Am I in the right position? Am I being appreciated?' - then you're going to end up feeling frustrated and stuck. But if you can keep it about the work, you'll always have a path. There's always something to be done.

President Barack Obama (HONY)

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Be.

I have been back from LA for a few days, and I already miss the magic air. I dreaded the return to East Coast hypertension, but I’m diligently keeping the post-vacation attitude and glow. The trip, put off several times, was much needed and overdue. Despite that I made my first visit to LA on the one week that it rains a year, it was still a wonderful opportunity to visit with friends and re-center myself. 

It was apparent that I had become stressed to irrationality on the flight there. I had to talk myself down from hyperventilating on more than one occasion, my left shoulder became so tense it was stuck in a painful cock-eyed position. My thoughts flipped through all the worst case scenarios; finally, in the nick-of-time, the voice of reason broke through saying: ‘But you have friends here; it’s not like you’re visiting abroad, etc.’ So, if anything were to happen, I was in the ideal place for a vacation. Then once I got there, I was stressed and reprimanded myself for having not planned much. What was I doing there? After a second night feeling defeated driving in LA rush hour traffic, missing my exit 3 times, down-pouring  rain, which concluded with a 45 minute search for parking near my place, I decided to get a bottle of wine, cheese and crackers and binge watch my favorite show for the night. So what if that’s why I do on my vacation? It’s my vacation. I didn’t have anywhere to be. It was just what I needed - no schedule and making things up as I go. It rained nearly every day, so I needed to get creative anyway. All of a sudden I had to just deal with myself and my mountain of fears and neuroses. The amount of second-guessing I do had reached the obscene. (Also, quickly learned can be dangerous while driving. Commit to those direction decisions!) I also became aware of how mean I am to myself. I am my own troll, and this troll had been around for too long. I don’t give myself enough credit for what I’m capable of. I realized that I always pressure myself that I have somewhere to be, something to do (though its not necessarily case). Even when I was a kid, I would sit half-way off the chair during dinner so I could dash away. Meals were an interruption to whatever I was doing. What was I always trying to catch? So I started out being a weirdo and went for long walks in the city, and then explored on long drives. I took my time at museums or sight-seeing areas. For once, I gave myself permission to have nowhere to be - but to just be. That was enough. During the week I met up with old friends - and some new ones. I took a yoga class (first one in over a year) and had an energy session from one of my dear friends. In each experience there was a lot of meditation and setting intentions. There was so much resistance and fear when I brought myself to these occasions, and I had to confront why. I honestly don’t have all the answers to that why. There are a lot of layers there and no immediate resolution, but perhaps it’s an ongoing work. This constant feeling like I’m being I’m in need of being somewhere else, judging myself and the moment has stifled my ability to be present, from letting my creativity flow, for giving breathing room for what life can bring. I will set the intention to diminish that. To be kind to myself. To find ease. To simply be.

*photo: Tianna Oliver - Cardyoga

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Day to Day Play - Memory #1 Two young women are sitting in a car. Sister 1 (the older sister) is lounging back in the passenger seat. Sister 2 is sitting in the driver’s seat, checking herself in the rearview mirror. Both are eating mini frosties from Wendy’s. The radio is softly playing some terrible pop station.

Sister 1: How many more of these coupons do we have left before they expire?

Sister 2: Ummm…4.

Sister 1: Ugh. I can’t eat anymore.

Sister 2: Well, the next Wendy’s, we’d have to go into Lansing. We’ve covered our area.

Sister 1: What about Grand Ledge?

Sister 2: I don’t want to go there.

Sister 1: Yeah. I can’t eat anymore anyway.

(Sister 1 puts the mini cup in the cup holder and reclines far back in her seat.)

Sister 2: But it’s the last day!

(Sister 1 let’s out a groan.)

Sister 1: Grosssss….

(They laugh.)

Sister 2: Right.

(Sister 2 reclines back in her seat. Silence.)

Sister 1: What are you going to do?

Sister 2: Nothing. It doesn’t matter. I feel relieved. I’m tired of being stressed out all the time.

Sister 1: Yeah. Me too…Do you think he’s right - we had no childhood?

Sister 2: No, we still did stuff.

Sister 1: Yeah. Mom wasn’t always super sick. Not when we were little. It doesn’t matter….he has a new family.

(Beat.)

Sister 1: Remember when we woke up at 5 in the morning because the “aliens” were attacking our stuffed animal world?

Sister 2: (laughs) Those weird Burger king toys weren’t they? That were the aliens?

Sister 1: Hahaha…yeah. And I think the Queen Bunny, the one with the pillow bottom, she killed them by suffocating them with her butt.

Sister 2: That seems about right.

Sister 1: And how could there be no childhood without Snurd?

Sister 2: (Trying to keep a straight face.) Aw. Shut up…don’t make fun of poor Snurd.

Sister 1: Stupid cat.

Sister 2: Scooter used was weird (She mimics a squawking sound made to imitate the deceased pet. Sister 1 playfully slaps her.)

Sister 1: Couldn’t resist.

Sister 2: What time do you leave tomorrow?

Sister 1: I have to be at the airport by 7.

Sister 2: Yuck. I wish you didn’t have to go so soon.

Sister 1: Me too…I mean, I don’t mind having distance between this drama. I wish you guys could come with me.

Sister 2: Distance is nice, but we could never live in the city. Once we get the new house though…

Sister 1: That’ll be nice.

Sister 2: I’m just tired. I’m tired of playing this game we’ll never win.

Sister1: Yeah, I can’t keep tally of their bi-polar whims when I’m just trying to make rent every month. I don’t have time for that.

(Beat.)

Sister 2: So really, it’s just you and me.

Sister 1: In that sense, nothing has really changed.

Sister 2: Is it snowing??

Sister 1: Ugh. Yeah.

Sister 2: We should head back then. I still have to make dinner.

(S2 sits up in her seat.)

Sister 1: Ugh. How after all that? (gestures to the mini-frosty cups around her.)

Sister 2: So much food shame.

(She starts the car.)

Black out.

[katescripted]

I am fascinated by this idea. The dialogue is a jumble, but I love the way the filmmakers and the actors put it into some kind of context and give it emotional support. As far as the acting goes, you still need a human to make it human. I want to create something like this, as there is so much to learn in the challenge. 

Also, I love that a computer came up with a song.

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PLEASE BE ADVISED

I am going to make a film. I’m going to get in touch with my inner Brene Brown, put on my vulnerable suit and say “I’m going to make a film”. It’s scary putting into words. I mean, I got freaked out about booking a flight to travel by myself for an LA vacation, let alone take over something as complicated as making a film. It’s a commitment.

It’s the statement itself that makes me cringe. “I’m going to make a film.” It makes me feel like I’m exposing my weaknesses, opening myself up to that inner critic, always waiting in the wings to step forward and say through a tight smile: “Oh, a film? Isn’t that nice” as she nods saying with her eyes: “An adult still clinging to her pipe dreams...Indecent.”

I am not going into this with rose-colored glasses by any means. I’ve been going into this with such a heavy dose of skepticism that I can’t pick up my feet. A friend loaned me the book “If Chins Could Kill: Confessions of a B Movie Actor” by Bruce Campbell meant as inspiration, having recently been introduced to the Evil Dead movies, but instead triggered inner conflict and mild (sometimes intense) panic. Basically the book outlines the struggles of making independent movies - starting with The Evil Dead - and the business side of Hollywood. Given, this was in an age prior to the internet, but making a film now has it’s own set of obstacles that are just as daunting. (I don’t foresee myself doing as much cold calling as these fellas did, but I foresee maybe some cold e-mailing! Fun. times.) For a good portion of this book I found myself feeling nauseated. Something meant as a “quick read”, I could only handle a few pages at time, as if I was reading some gore porn paperback. I’m sure if I wasn’t on the precipice of doing something this insane, I would have found the making of all of these films quite humorous and fascinating, but instead it was force feeding all of my doubts. The things is, with my doubts, I don’t see the positive outcome, like this story ends up leading to, but instead: “Oh my god. What did I do? I’m broke, I wasted my time and everyone else's, I should have stuck with xyz. Sure you can do crazy shit like that when you’re 22, but at 30?...”, and then, in a cold sweat, I reach back for what’s left of my thread-bare dignity and think: “No, no, stick to what is safe, what you know.” 

The thing is I’m not pushing myself in the areas that are “safe, and what I know”. It has made me question what that even means. I’ve gotten to the point now where I bite my nails over posting a Tumblr entry (this one included) for a list of reasons and overlapping neuroses, let alone show a new play or film. My writing has become hollow because I’m not exploring. Which is why I need to step forward in doing this - success or no - there will be some kind of growth or change either way. Already the prospect of it is working its magic. I’ve noticed my art in other areas becoming more focused, I’ve been taking better care of myself, and having the guts to make plans that aren’t “safe” in other areas of my life. Baby steps - or hops - but they are significant to me at least.

So the book, indeed, ended up being inspirational in that this fellow Michigander, giving me a healthy dose that “movies are not all made out of tinsel”, still decided to take up the challenge. It helped to step back and rearrange my perspective. I do have experience with this script, especially having performed it twice, and it is finally in the place that I always wanted it to be. I have great people around me that want to do it. And why wouldn’t I take the opportunity or even attempt? I guess I needed to write this to give myself some kind of accountability.

So deep breath. I’m going to be vulnerable. I’m vulnerable. I’m going to show feelings. 

I’m going to make a film.

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Day to Day Play #25 - Memory #1

126th day of the year

Two young women are sitting in a car. Sister 1 (the older sister) is lounging back in the passenger seat. Sister 2 is sitting in the driver’s seat, checking herself in the rearview mirror. Both are eating mini frosties from Wendy’s. The radio is softly playing some terrible pop station.

Sister 1: How many more of these coupons do we have left before they expire?

Sister 2: Ummm...4.

Sister 1: Ugh. I can’t eat anymore.

Sister 2: Well, the next Wendy’s, we’d have to go into Lansing. We’ve covered our area.

Sister 1: What about Grand Ledge? 

Sister 2: I don’t want to go there.

Sister 1: Yeah. I can’t eat anymore anyway.

(Sister 1 puts the mini cup in the cup holder and reclines far back in her seat.)

Sister 2: But it’s the last day!

(Sister 1 let’s out a groan.)

Sister 1: Grosssss....

(They laugh.)

Sister 2: Right.

(Sister 2 reclines back in her seat. Silence.)

Sister 1: What are you going to do?

Sister 2: Nothing. It doesn’t matter. I feel relieved. I’m tired of being stressed out all the time.

Sister 1: Yeah. Me too...Do you think he’s right - we had no childhood?

Sister 2: No, we still did stuff.

Sister 1: Yeah. Mom wasn’t always super sick. Not when we were little. It doesn’t matter....he has a new family.

(Beat.)

Sister 1: Remember when we woke up at 5 in the morning because the “aliens” were attacking our stuffed animal world?

Sister 2: (laughs) Those weird Burger king toys weren’t they? That were the aliens?

Sister 1: Hahaha...yeah. And I think the Queen Bunny, the one with the pillow bottom, she killed them by suffocating them with her butt.

Sister 2: That seems about right.

Sister 1: And how could there be no childhood without Snurd?

Sister 2: (Trying to keep a straight face.) Aw. Shut up...don’t make fun of poor Snurd.

Sister 1: Stupid cat.

Sister 2: Scooter used was weird (She mimics a squawking sound made to imitate the deceased pet. Sister 1 playfully slaps her.)

Sister 1: Couldn’t resist.

Sister 2: What time do you leave tomorrow?

Sister 1: I have to be at the airport by 7.

Sister 2: Yuck. I wish you didn’t have to go so soon.

Sister 1: Me too...I mean, I don’t mind having distance between this drama. I wish you guys could come with me.

Sister 2: Distance is nice, but we could never live in the city. Once we get the new house though...

Sister 1: That’ll be nice.

Sister 2: I’m just tired. I’m tired of playing this game we’ll never win.

Sister1: Yeah, I can’t keep tally of their bi-polar whims when I’m just trying to make rent every month. I don’t have time for that. 

(Beat.)

Sister 2: So really, it’s just you and me.

Sister 1: In that sense, nothing has really changed.

Sister 2: Is it snowing??

Sister 1: Ugh. Yeah.

Sister 2: We should head back then. I still have to make dinner.

(S2 sits up in her seat.)

Sister 1: Ugh. How after all that? (gestures to the mini-frosty cups around her.)

Sister 2: So much food shame.

(She starts the car.)

Black out.

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=WEDnGAvjQXw 

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#story #sheep #watercolors #wool #fluff

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Day to Day Play #24

The 112th day of the year.

Purple Day.

Woman is sitting at home in her small apartment, ukulele in her lap. She’s looking at a laptop on her coffee table. From the laptop ‘Starfish and Coffee’ by Prince is playing. She stops the song and replays it. She stops it and plucks a few chords and struggles with the rhythms. She plays the song again from the beginning, sitting at the edge of the couch with her ukulele. Finally, she falls back and just listens to the song. After the song plays it’s quiet. She listens.

A man coughs up phlegm outside, repeatedly. The cat in the next room is rustling a plastic bag. The radiator clunks. A child cries below her. Two women are talking in the apartment across the courtyard:

w1: I just want to be able to do my art, you know? I can’t with these shifts.

w2: I know, I can’t even make money with the shifts I do have...

The Woman plucks her ukulele absently, remembering the poem she read that morning:

Woman: Ah, dismal soul’d!/The winds of heaven blew, the ocean roll’d/It’s gathering waves - ye felt it not. The blue/Bared its eternal bosom, and the dew/Of summer nights collected still to make/The morning precious: beauty was awake!/Why were ye not awake?

[katescripted]

And I here make a rule-a great and lasting story is about everyone or it will not last. The strange and foreign is not interesting-only the deeply personal and familiar.

John Steinbeck, “East of Eden”

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I have not written here at all this year. I haven’t really for several reasons.

I just opened my final show of this triad of productions, and so my primary focus for writing was on my scripts. It’s been an immense learning process…some of the lessons re-learned.

I’m learning a lot about my voice as a writer: what I want to say, what I really feel passionate about, how to connect to an audience in a more nuanced way, why it even matters…

The last one probably strikes most on the obstacle that I’ve come to in my writing -in myself- which is to be more vulnerable.  Lately, I’ve been hearing a hollow-ness in my dialogue, that it reaches an edge and then draws back.

I liken the feeling to when I was learning to dive. I stood on the edge of the pool frozen, long after everyone had left, telling myself that my irrational fear of breaking my neck in the deep end of the pool was just another irrational myth my mother instilled in me. (My overprotective mother sat to the side and suddenly approved of said deadly dive, wondering where my panicky behavior came from, and impatiently waiting for me to make some kind of head-first move. Telling for my entire life really…) I felt like I was caught.

And I feel like that now. With the momentum of doing three shows simultaneously, spinning perilously close to what I thought would be a “crash and burn” failure, I want to more than ever hit my voice. I want to be clearer for those who are acting in my work and seeing my work. I am also understanding at a visceral level how important structure is to a script in aiding the story, down to how the lines themselves are placed on the page. Like I knew it, but I didn’t know it. Watching actors work on my scripts, and as an actor in my own script, I would lament to myself at the way I broke up the dialogue, making it so difficult to memorize. I will not do such a disservice again. There will be more care in the way I arrange the text on the page.

Having such a concentrated time in all aspects of theater, it made me realize how important it is to me to tell stories. After all the stress, and the outside practical drama, and two nosebleeds, I had this really old familiar feeling opening “Bane” that I have not felt in a long time. The last time I really felt that way was as a kid putting up plays in the basement for my parents, this feeling that I own whatever this is - whether it be silly, or beautiful, or dark - this is mine and I do not doubt it or judge it. And here I am, 30 years old, putting up a play of mine in a downtown theater in New York, and  I will own it - whether it be silly, beautiful, or dark. It made me realize that I have been denying this part of myself, that I love to tell stories. And that is a dishonesty that has shown, not only in my writing, but in a lot of other aspects of my life. It’s something I always downplay because it’s scary. What if the story is weird? Or boring? Or not funny? Or too aggressive? 

So I’ve been stuck on that diving board - that almost there.

So this is what brings me back to the blog, to bring my writing to a different kind of accountability, to work in a structure, but also challenge myself to be vulnerable to a hypothetical audience. And, ya know, it’s dangerous on the internet.

[katescripted]

Dusting off the ol’ blog for 2015. 

While there has been lack of writing here, it’s because I found myself writing a lot in the past 2 months. I had a brief stint writing abstracts for science journal articles (my first paid writing gig), and getting together a script for the 4th APT production (more info to come).

Anywho. I’ve been struggling a lot writing this play. The idea - or really feeling - that triggered the whole thing, that seemed so set, has started moving around and can’t be perfectly hedged in. So I put it on hold for a couple weeks, started taking it up again, and then once again I found myself stuck, the jumping stone there, but just a little too far. 

But inspiration comes from unexpected places.

Recently, a friend of mine on Facebook posted something from Brene Brown, a quote from her book, that struck me. I looked her up and realized I had indeed listened to her TED talk awhile ago, but it never really grabbed my attention - probably because it was a TED talk. Maybe a TED talk embedded in an Upworthy post. A TED talk that is titled “The Power of Vulnerability” no less.  (Who does the audio for those things? I loathe the sound of them swallowing. Just me? Ok.) So her whole thing - as given away in the title - is talking about vulnerability. The TED talk structure and the audience laughing at lame jokes aside, she had some really great points that have kind of opened this script for me. And not just the script, but my work in general. She talks about connection and how we are hard-wired for it, we desire it. And she talks about shame, how we all have this same fear of being disconnected in some way. When I heard this, I thought: OF COURSE! And “of course” for not only my script, which is dealing with internet things, but in other aspects of my creative work, my relationships, my life. 

I am terrible at being vulnerable. It’s extremely vulnerable for me to admit that right now. In a blog. That probably no one reads.

For the last year, I’ve been going to a therapist for my intense anxiety, and it’s eye opening that it largely comes from this pervasive fear of being vulnerable. The “don’t show too much emotion” part of my upbringing, this culture, had gotten so bad I shut down. It was a kind of self-deception that “I don’t need those feelings” was a lot of upkeep. 

And it effects my writing. I was noticing in several entries that I comment how I hate my voice, or mock what I’m writing about - or the very act that I am writing at all. (How childish that I still journal!) My own private journal, a place to clear my head so I can move on to the other things I’m writing, was not authentic. It was sterile. What am I afraid of in my own freakin’ journal?

So. I want to explore this and challenge myself. This “power of vulnerability”. And the first challenge, is putting it out there with this post.