Floppy, Incongruent Transitions
Life is a bit floppy, and also in transition. Given the time and the inspiration I’ve started journaling and goaling again. Yearly goals, monthly goals, daily gratitudes and reflections. One of those goals was to write once a week for no one but myself. Given the space I’ve started making up words (note “goaling” and “gratitudes” – never before seen or made plural) which is silly, but it’s helped me express myself in a way I don’t think I’ve been able to since writing in this space publicly.
The work I feel most proud of streams out of my head and onto the paper in a single rivulet of consciousness. Neither rhyme nor reason. Which often means no tact, no coded language, no pleasantries.
So, I think I stepped away from here and from these writings because my voice didn’t sound like my own anymore. The person who’s written the last few posts was as real as ever – those words were a true reflection of my thoughts – but they were watered down, made palatable in anticipation of being shared. I stepped away from this because I hadn’t been writing how I wanted to. In my fears of becoming an influencer poser I started writing like one, sharing obvious thoughts I assumed were the type that should be shared. I love big, audacious words but why use a 25 cent one will a 5 cent one will do? One of my favorite teachers told me that. Words are great, they can get oddly specific, but if they’re not making a point other than to demonstrate your own vocabulary get them the fuck out.
My voice sounded differently here. So, I began writing for myself, and locked up in my “Personal Writings” folder those words are honest, they’re simple. They make my thoughts feel rare. Here they’ve felt obvious.
It’s an incongruence in my writing that I’m trying to fix or at least explore. Right now, the shared and the personally authentic can’t really be the same. But this right here, what whoever you are has just read in the preceding lines, feels like me. I didn’t think about those words, I just did my best to translate the jumbled swirling from my head.
This feels good and it reads well and I’m proud of these words.
