When I began this blog about a year ago it was for a number of different reasons but mainly because I felt like I was drowning in my life. I was so utterly lost in every way. I had so many things going on in my head and inside of me that I felt like a volcano, with simmering and mounting pressure. I felt like I was going to burst trying to hold it all in but didn’t know where to turn for support or help. Right or wrong I didn’t feel that I could turn to those who I’d usually turn to in my moments of need; they either had their own problems to deal with or they were entwined and tangled up with me in my problems.
This blog was initially about a place to let go of all I felt and all I was going through without hurting or involving other people. It was to be a way of talking about my family without causing damage to our relationship, because that is the funny thing about words once you say them you can’t take them back, there is no way to unsay them. This blog was about protecting them and holding on to what we shared no matter how tattered and shredded I felt it to be. But, ultimately it was more about protecting myself and dealing with it all in my way at a moment and pace of my own choosing. A large part of this decision is about my inherent belief that ‘No one can take care of me better than me’ which is tantamount to saying ‘I’m afraid to trust people when I’m vulnerable’. Let me rephrase that: ‘I don’t trust people to be there for me’. I don’t let people in, I don’t trust easily and I don’t rely on other people. In all my relationships, past and present, there is always a part of myself that I hold back, that I keep separate and secret. I know it’s a self preservation thing, a way of pushing people away and preventing them from getting too close. But that’s where the clarity ends, I don’t why I do it, I’m not sure what happened to make me feel that this is necessary.
I thought keeping a blog would be a way of talking about things and a way of getting it all out without making myself vulnerable and without running the risk of being reminded of what I was going through. I wanted it to be a place I could go to that was all me and had nothing to do with the people that had hurt me. Which is a strange contradiction considering the driving force was them and the hurt, so the reality is that it has everything to do with them and it. Looking back over the last year I can see a large part of this desire was the desire to find myself. I can see now that I had got lost; lost in my emotions, lost in my hurt, lost in where I was going, what I wanted to do, lost in worrying a great deal about what other people thought or felt about what I was doing or wanted to do. So, my keeping a blog was really a way of me mapping a way back or finding out who I was. It was a way of thinking out loud and giving voice to all the things that threatened to choke me if I didn't say them. It was and still is a way of finding the familiar to ground me on my onward journey.
At this precise moment I don’t feel like I’ve figured anything of significance out, but I think I might be half way there. Perhaps that’s why I’ve finally started to use my first name here on this blog rather than a pseudonym...
