I write for myself

I post some pretty personal shit here, no lie.

There are times when I forget that there are people out there, in my real world, who read this blog, because when I come here, to this blog, all I’m thinking about is the fact that I have something to say that I can’t express vocally.

Why can’t I say what I feel out loud?

Because I cringe from conflict, & am, despite the public persona I wear most of the time, very introverted and shy. 

I know some of you are laughing, but it’s actually true.

I joke a lot with the people I work with, use sarcasm & self-deprecation to diffuse tense situations, & generally behave like an out-going kick-ass, take-no-prisoners & suffer-no-bullshit kind of woman when I’m out in public.

But that’s just for show.

Inside, I’m still the nerdy, shy, scared girl who was incessantly picked on in high school. The one who was considered “fat”, wearing size 9 jeans as a senior. (Dear Gods, the horror of being 17, 5’7″, & 130 lbs.! I’d kill to be that size again, but won’t see it in this lifetime…)

I’m still the girl who would rather go horseback riding than go to a football game.

I’m still the girl who used to climb trees with a book, to spend the afternoon reading, alone, where no one could find me.

And I’m still the girl who will make up a story about chores at home, rather than having to face telling others she’s got anxiety.

*steering this derailed train back on the tracks*

Anywho… that girl, this woman, me.

When I started this blog, it was my safe haven, my sanctuary,  where I could scream into the darkness all that I felt, all that I had to say, because I was anonymous.  I wrote under my pseudonym,  Brea, ostensibly, to protect the privacy of my children, lest someone nearby read it & make connections. 

But, it was to protect that girl, too.
The one who still lives, & cringes from the past rejections & possible future repeats of rejections.

Slowly, over time, I let slip that I wrote a blog, & people who know me IRL started reading.

And, some of my posts have attracted people from my hometown, purely by chance, who’ve commented, shocking me so that I fall back, saying “OH, SHIT! Run! Hide! If they figure out it’s you, they’re going to point and laugh, just like they did in school!”

And then, there are days, when I have something that I really need to say, that burns & tears its way out of me…

And I forget that this isn’t my anonymous oubliette anymore.

But, then I shrug, put on the public mask, & say…

Fuckit.

I write for myself.

Deep in the Heart of Night

Nope, still not sleeping well.

Good intentions, physical labor, mental jumping jacks… none of it seems to be helping me get a decent night’s sleep.

Fuckit.

I’m up, might as well write something.

So, a couple of days ago, someone commented on an ollllld post I wrote a few years ago about Dr. Bohdan Hordinsky.

And my stats blew up – again.

I’ve had this happen a few times, now, over the years since I originally wrote it.  It was (still is) a good post. 

I just find it kind of funny how 1 or 2 people will comment on it, but all of a sudden, I’ve got 500+ hits on it in 1 day. 

Now, I’m pretty sure that most of those hits are “bots”… but if they truly are real, live people all clamoring to read my words… well, I’m pretty sure they’re mostly bots. It just doesn’t make sense, otherwise.

Not that Doc H. wasn’t cool. He was. It’s just that my old hometown is fairly small.

And by “fairly small”, I mean miniscule.

As in approximately 300 people small.

Yeah, Doc came from the Ukraine.
Yeah, he knew a lot of people, and affected a lot of people throughout his years, both here and abroad.

But I can’t imagine, after all these years, that there are still that many people googling his name on a daily basis. 

Whatever, I’m cool with it.

But it really screws up my other daily stats, & makes it hard to truly see how many real, live people visit the hearth here.

Ah well, it’ll all die down again in a couple days, & I’ll be back to my small, but true, number of visits.

Journaling /Journeying

When I was a kid, I had a diary.
Red, faux-leather, with a golden lock to ostensibly keep people from reading my deepest/darkest.

I could barely write block printing when I got it, but I had somewhere to put all the fascinating 6 yr. old thoughts & occurrences of my life.

“Got up. Got dressed. Had breakfast, but the good cereal was all gone because brother ate it to get the prize.”

“Went to school, and had fun at recess.”

Went to my friend’s house & played Barbies, then Mom said it was time to go home, so rode my bike back.”

Thrilling, riveting stuff.

As I got older, the diary morphed into school notebooks, endless scribbles of horrid poetry & strange bits of stories.  I was Emo before it was a thing, minus the dyed hair, stark makeup & cool black clothes. 

It was all in the attitude. Down with authority,  up with the weird & morbid!

Plus, my mom wouldn’t let me dye my hair, wear Emo makeup, or dress in all black. 

“Down with authori… yes, Mom, I’ll be down in a second!”

As an adult, I hung onto the notebooks, but I also started using a typewriter to put down my thoughts. Then, a computer.

And then…*cue choirs of angels in Gloria Excelsis*…

Along came the INTERNET.
And BLOGS.

Heaven. Nirvana.

Every so often, I feel the need to pour out everything. And here, I can do that, in a format that gives me an audience. Maybe a small one, maybe somedays, a nonexistent one. Maybe all the voices in my head gathered together & decided to take up Internet identities in order to placate me, to show me that at least there’s someone out there, reading.

And yes, I vent, I mourn, I share & I rejoice. All in the same place- here, my blog. To some, this may seem to be bi-polar, or mutiple-personalities.

But it’s not. Those disorders are much more complicated than what I go through.

So, if none of these entries seem to “flow” in any discernible order, don’t worry.

This is my life.
Scattered.
Chaotic.
Complicated.
Up, down, sideways, twisted.
With moments of random sanity.

I just journal it when the mood strikes.

But as someone once said (don’t ask who, I have no clue)

We all have chapters of our lives we don’t read out loud.

Back Burner

Life has been complicated,  messy, & anxiety-ridden lately.

Umm… well, it’s always been that way, but it’s been that times about 5 for the last few weeks.

I’ve tacked back on some extra stress flab, & am trying really hard to correct that, watching what I eat, getting outside more to do yardwork, & contemplating working out. (Thinking about it really hard works brain cells, so why can’t it burn calories too? Something doesn’t seem quite right with that)

I just haven’t been much in the mood to write.

I’m sure some of my regulars have noticed a dearth of words here. 

Even the fiction has been virtual- virtually non-existent.  It’s been ages since I posted any flash fiction.

The creativity has been channeling into crafts, instead of the blog.

I’d apologize… but I’m not really sorry.

Take a look at what has been crafted in the last month………..

Made a cat tower out of some old “under-the-bed” drawers & some old carpet sticky squares & rope.

Finished a dresser my dad gave me- I love the raw wood color, so I just put a couple coats of polyurethane spray on it, filled nail holes, & put on the drawer pulls & keyhole covers.

Made a sign for my dad (a belated father’s day gift). Those are the grandson’s handprints at the bottom. He does a lot of woodworking, & has a whole old house filled with his projects, tools, etc.

And, the piece de resistance is…
A nightstand I’ve got about 20 hours of work into, sanding, painting…

After sanding…

Liquid gold paint on the 2 opposing sides…

Branches…

Leaves…
And now…

Updated – Finished the blossoms on the opposite side tonight. Accent colors tomorrow, & it’ll be finished before the weekend!

Cherry blossoms.

Then, I’ll fill in texture & depth colors, and poly – coat it to protect when I’m finished.

Everything else, including blogging much, has gone on the back-burner for now.

But I ain’t dead yet.

Days Gone Past

Anniversary. The word that means to remember all the days gone past. To celebrate the triumphs, large and small. To stand in witness to the sad times, the bad times, and realize that, somehow, you made it through them all.
You’ve survived. You’ve learned and grown from all of life’s lessons, so far. And – you’re still here.

And what am I doing?

I’m lying, awake, at 1:30 A.M., realizing that my blogging anniversary happened 2 days ago… And I missed it.

5 years, WordPress tells me.  5 years since I started down this path of self-expression.  And WordPress speaks softly in my ear…”Are you done screaming into the darkness of the internet yet?”

And the answer is no. I’m not finished.
I’m still here. And I still have more to say.

For 5 years, I’ve shared both joy & pain with you all. I’ve watched people walk both into, and out of, my life. I’ve bared myself, time and again, trusting that what I had to say might touch someone out there. That my words might have meaning.  That I would be heard, and understood, even if only by one.

It hasn’t always been easy. It’s a delicate process… Opening up, sharing. Never knowing till after the fact whether I was going to be accepted or ridiculed for what I had to say.

But, the WordPress community has always been supportive.

I’ve made some dear friends, some who are still in my life today, and some who followed different paths, fading back into the mists of the web.

It’s been a strange and wonderful ride.  And I wouldn’t have missed it for the world.  Thank you, WordPress, for giving me this forum to “scream into the darkness”. And thank you, all of you readers, for sharing the journey with me.

It’s not over yet.  There’s more ’round the next bend.

And another anniversary waiting up ahead.

Courage is Being Afraid – and Doing the Thing Anyway

I’m going to attempt something… A little different. .. In the next few days. I’m still working it out in my head.

Whether I’ll share it with all, I’m not sure.
So, give me a moment, and let me screw my courage to the sticking point.

And we’ll see.

Additions and Subtractions

There have been a lot of additions and subtractions in my life lately.

Some positive, some… not so much.

But, I have to deal with all of them, get through them.  I must celebrate the good, and grieve for the bad.

The Good News:

I started OnlySon on blogging this last week.  He has been writing short, flash fiction for a little while now, and enjoys putting stories down.  I’ve read some of his stuff, and he has a promising future as a fiction writer.  He’s gifted in his storytelling, and can pull a reader in with the emotional and descriptive things he writes.  It’s all a little twisted and somewhat on the darker side, but – who am I to speak to that?  After all, I write a lot of monster stories, myself!

When we first set up his blog, he was sort of “meh” about it, nonchalant and noncommittal.  But… after he posted his first piece of flash fiction, he got a couple of almost instantaneous “likes” and was strutting like a fluffed-up peacock with pride.  He turned to me and said “You know, this IS going to go to my head.”

I said “Good, it should.  You need to know that other people enjoy your stories as much as I do.  You’re good at this.”

I want him to know that he has a definite talent, instead of always being told he’s not “good enough”, or “smart enough”.  He has a tough time in school, sometimes, and I know that his self-esteem isn’t always at the top end.  So this positive feedback from relative strangers is massively good for him.

Yes, there are things he could work on, and I’ve told him that I will help him with editing anytime he wants, but that I will NOT restrain him from writing whatever he wants.  This is HIS outlet, and I won’t squash that.

The Bad News:

I am on my own again.  There was a man I was in a relationship with, long distance, but I could handle that.  He hurt me emotionally, and I don’t know if there’s a glue that can fix that..

So.

I am left to find my own way once more.

It hurts – immensely.  I’ve cared about him for a long time, and was really hoping it would become something more.  But you can’t change the weather, you can’t fix someone else’s problems for them, and you can’t change their mind when they refuse to talk to you, hear you, or give you a chance to prove them wrong.

I don’t want to be alone for the rest of my life.  I want someone I can share my life with, that I can share his too.  I want someone who will touch me like he means it, who will be there through the happy and the sad.  I want a partner I can stand beside and walk through life with.

I want someone who is not going to disappear on me, as others have.

I am an eternal romantic optimist, but this is a blow.  And it will take time to trust anyone else enough to believe that they won’t simply take off.

Additions and Subtractions.

And me, with my allergy to math.

In the Interim

I took a pause.

Went off on a tangent.

Started another blog, dropped it, started yet another one, and dropped that one too – started a third… and a fourth… dropped the third, kept the fourth.

And I came home – here – to where my WordPress adventures all started.

There have been a lot of changes in my life… and a lot that stayed the same.

I don’t really want to rehash it here, so I’m simply having a GRAND RE-OPENING, now under old management.

Come for the ribbon cutting… stay for the emergency alcohol preps!

Anyhoo… I’m going to be posting whenever I damn well feel like it, so hang on!

And – tomorrow?  There might even be fiction.

 

 

Coming Home

It’s been 2 years and some change…

but I’m coming home.

Back to where it all started – here, at Brea’s Air.

Things might look a little different, but that’s ok.  Change is good.

And it can be found in couch cushions, if you look.

Hold on, I’m currently burning some bridges and razing some fields, but then I’ll be back. Covered in soot and feeling happier than I have in a long time.

Then we’ll get down to business.

A Work in Progress

My parents told me, when I was born, that I was perfect.

But I wasn’t.

I was, instead, a perfectly formed container of pure potential.

Potential to succeed – potential to fail.

Potential to grow, potential to wither.

And it was up to me to use this potential.

I was a work in progress.

They say that I was formed by my surroundings.

To a certain extent, that is true.

We are, all of us, affected by every single thing that happens to and around us throughout our lives.  The people we come into contact with, change us irrevocably, and forever.  As we change them.

And, as the human animals that we are, we are also affected by the things that exist within us, as well.  Instinct, honed by millions of years of evolution, have created a race of beings with the potential for greatness.  Whether great joy, or great tragedy – is completely up to us as a species.  Personal emotions and ideas form the way we interact with the world, aside from the “trained responses” that are part of society and parenting, pushing us to make decisions either for gain or for loss.

And we make mistakes.

I know I do.

Sometimes, out of frustration, or anger, or some other strong, passionate emotion, I will say things that I will later regret.  I have done things in the past that I am not so proud of.  People I’ve hurt, including myself, have been affected by my words, my actions, in ways that I cannot truly comprehend.

Sometimes, I don’t live up to my potential.  I fall down, as the imperfect being that I am.  I stumble and give way to the instinctual “flight or fight” responses that every living, sentient species has within them.  I can be angry, and depressed, and occasionally petty or small-minded. 

I can, however, also be filled with joy, and laughter and genuine helpfulness, caring and compassion for my fellow earth-dwellers.

Be patient with me, please. 

I am a work in progress.

And in the future, there will be times when I will stumble, because I’m not perfect. 

But I have potential.

And I know, this may sound strange – coming from someone who follows the Wiccan faith – but the words are strong in their potential, and carry their own weight, no matter who speaks them.

“Forgive us our trespasses, as We forgive those who trespass against us.”

If I have harmed you in the past, I apologize.  I will endeavor to keep myself from causing harm in the future, but I cannot guarantee perfect success.  I will endeavor to live up to my potential, to work at becoming more than I am today.  I will strive.

We are all of us imperfect beings – full of perfect potential.

Works in Progress.