I couldn’t stay away.
I pledged on my birthday in 2008 to write a BookBlog every day for a year, and that ended July 28th, 2009 — but that doesn’t mean I’m stopping. Oh, no! I’ve become addicted to blogging, so I will continue to blog. One change.
Instead of every single day, I will write a BookBlog every weekday. For one thing, my Serena in my screenplay and my Lucy in my novel and the old me in my memoir are all begging for my attention! So I must write our stories.
For another, there are many precious realizations that pop up in the writing, and one, for me, was that I’m still acting off trying to be a good girl so you’ll love me. We all carry on some childhood whims, vows, habits, which might then be life-saving or face-saving, but, in adulthood, might turn out to be a ridiculous waste of time. Being a good girl so you’ll love me, is utterly undependable. I might please you but not you, and if I do please you, then how do I know I won’t have to jump through the same hoops over and over, because maybe you’ll change your mind, and I won’t know that.
No. I have to begin again. Begin on my birthday July 28th to be who I am and give all I can, but not guess what I think you might want and try to give it. And, part of that realization is to build in periods of non-stress. No deadlines. No items to check off the list. Read if I want — I can blog on Monday or Tuesday, but to not have to blog on Saturday and Sunday gives me space for the me to come up for air inside the quiet spaces.
I have always been a workaholic. At various points in my life, I have been out of balance — that was a topsy-turvy response to my stepfather turning me into his sex toy before I was in kindergarden, to my mother’s alcoholism/schizophrenia/suicidal personality, to them pushing my real dad out of my life forever when I was six. Out of balance became exercizing too many hours, getting too skinny so even my period disappeared, shopping too much until about twelve years ago I looked in my closet at about seventy boxes of shoes and was compelled to quit shopping and give all those shoes away, drinking and not remembering until someone told me that I’d taken off my clothes and was flirting, screwing just because the guy begged or was my friend or I didn’t want to say no because then he might not like me. Ah-ha! Here we are, full circle! So no more sex addict or workaholic. I’ve got the rest balanced out by now.
Take time to be in balance. Take time for yourself.
Even though I love writing for you, these are the deeper reasons I won’t be blogging on Saturdays and Sundays.
Unless I feel like it!
