Be Yourself. Everyone Else is Taken

I've been quiet lately. In terms of my interactions with humans.

Work has consumed way too much space in my brain. It's been emotionally exhausting. Continues to be. And winter... well, if I could be a bear, I would. Find myself a cozy cave to snuggle into and sleep away the grey and the cold and the wind and rain and emerge as the buds and berries are starting to burgeon. Instead, I've been cold since October and am now staring out the window with contempt at the snow.

I've been noticeably quiet with my blogging too. There's a lot of drafts sitting there. Thirty eight to be exact. This winter has been a hard one for a lot of reasons so I would start a post, in part, to rant. Then it would die because I was, in fact, just getting something off my chest. And since I'm not Rick Mercer or Rex Murphy, I can't make a career out of my rants, so I simply abandon it until the next one surfaces.

My silence has also been indicative of an identify crisis with my writing. It wasn't so much about what I wanted to write, but it was about who my "audience" was. I know a very diverse group of people. And I am to those people what they want me to be. And by that I mean, my relationships differ based on how I know those people. Work friends may differ from everyday friends. Everyday friends may differ from church friends. Church friends may differ from mutual friends of B3 and me. And mutual friends will differ from long time friends. I started to think that WHO I was writing to held some weight in WHAT I wrote.

To further confuse the matter, I have two blogs. This one, that I call my "everyday" blog and the other one that told the story of finding my father and actually turns out to be a story about my faith. It describes a very personal journey. And that journey isn't over until it's over, hence I've been wondering if I shouldn't re-boot that blog into version 2.0.

And that's where fear has been buzzing and biting like a endless swarm of mosquitoes in a prairie summer.  "If you write this what will these people over here think?" or "If you write that, you might anger or alienate those people over there." For a person with abandonment issues, these thoughts make me very jittery. The fear has tongue-tied me resulting in my silence. And I wonder why I don't feel like myself any longer. Why I don't feel the confidence I once did. Because fear (and all those judgmental voices from the past - some from the present) are telling me that my voice doesn't matter. That my journey is stupid and worthless.  And offensive. Just shut up and stay safe. 

This afternoon I ran across this old blog post of mine. It was a reminder be myself. "The world will adjust". 

Duh!

I kind of just shook my head because it also reminded me of the sign by my desk at work that I look at every day: "Be Yourself. Everyone Else is Taken."

So. Today. I bust out the DEET and wage war on the swarm of fears. This blog will be followed by another. It's time to just tell my story once again. People can read it or not. Just tell the truth. That is all. 

Source: Google Images