Friday, August 13, 2010

HOW LOUD ARE YOU LIVING?

This brain has been very full of lots of "stuff." In fact, sometimes I get so much stuff going on up there that it is like someone opened a puzzle and threw out all of the pieces. Yeah, like that's fun. I've never been a big puzzle fan to start with and now I am trying to sort through them in my head. My mom pulled me into her reading room to tell me that she read this little quippy thing: indigestion of the brain. She says, "Maybe you can blog about it."

I am thinking, "Who needs to blog about it? I am living with it. It's called insomnia and I have it nearly every night." However, indigestion of the brain is pretty quippy, so I do have to give her points on that one.


I started reading a blog by Lucy March about a month ago. Maybe more. Maybe less. Time has lost all meaning for me. I backdoored into a published writer's blog, and that led to another, and another, and then literary agents, and the list goes on. I wish that I could say that after extensive research I found these excellent websites. Nope. It was sheer luck, because I don't have a clue what I am doing on here. It is six months now, and I still don't get this site. That is really sad and I know it, but I am really shooting for honesty here and that is the truth.

Anyway, back to Lucy March... she is a published writer, so I checked out her site. I was really into my novel at that time and adding writers left and right. Turns out she is a published writer. Well... what I noticed immediately was that I was jumping into the middle of a story. Anyone who knows me, knows that I cannot stand that. For instance, if a TV show comes on and I miss the first season for any reason, and then it becomes this big hit, well I sometimes don't watch it until it is 1) almost over 2) completely over, or 3) not at all. And then it means I am buying it on DVD and playing catch up because I have to watch it IN ORDER. A story is meant to be read/told/watched from the beginning. So... in terms of Miss March's blog, that meant I had to go back to the beginning and start there. It turns out this wasn't a writing blog. It was a blog written by a writer, but it wasn't tips on improving your writing. This was a blog about rebuilding your life. This was real and honest and real. I know that I said real already, but she was throwing it out there. I was riveted.


I started reading four or five blogs at a time. My brain really couldn't process any more than that. In one of the more recent ones I read she says this, "The definition of adulthood is no longer caring what other people think." That hit so hard that I wrote it down in my notebook. It was an "aha" moment. It was a light bulb moment for her, as well. People who are people pleasers tend to twist themselves up to make other people happy. In some cases, the other people don't even know this is happening. In some cases, they do, and they take advantage. Either way, when you relegate your opinion about what you think to second, third, fourth, or tenth place, you get lost. You just keep stashing pieces of yourself away until you are unrecognizable even to yourself. You become what someone else wants you to be. Oh, the misery. Everyone knows this story doesn't have a happy ending.


So, Miss March is rebuilding. I thought about that while I was reading. How many times have I tried to rebuild since I got divorced? I have lost count. For the longest time, my ex-husband was still yanking my chain with his kids. It was the same old crap. The only difference was that he lived at a separate address. But I was still all tied up in knots. Well, I could go through each case of rebuild over the last five years, but they weren't rebuilds, they were false starts. Why didn't they work? "The definition of adulthood is no longer caring what other people think." I had been stuck in that loop de loop for so long that I didn't know how to get out.


I started a myspace, but my ex insisted on being my friend. Was it myspace? No. I started a facebook page. He friended me. This time I put the hammer down. No. However, we did have some mutual friends. I started blogging. One of them copied and pasted one of my blogs and emailed it to him. The blog was about me, but also about him. Sometimes you can't tell your own story without telling his. He got pissed and threatened to not let me see the kids. I could feel myself falling back into the same old patterns. This was pre-Lucy March. However, I was ready to tell him to be the one to explain things to them. In other words, I was ready to draw my line in the sand. You can't devocalize someone. He eventually calmed down. However, I got a blogger account and pretty much stopped blogging on facebook. The truth was that I still didn't want to be in his face. I wanted to be free to write how I felt without having to deal with him and his crap. So, I quietly pulled up my stakes and moved. I still occasionally post stuff on facebook, but nothing that will put his knickers in a knot.


I mentioned it earlier, but my blog following was smaller, so fewer of you got to appreciate it. So, I will bring it up again. H-Girl wanted to see Taylor Swift in concert for her birthday. Her dad said okay and said she could bring someone. She chose me. I tell you what, people, no one was more surprised than me. Events turned out really awesome in that one of her openers was sick and so Taylor went on EARLY. Woohoo. Anyway, she has all of these fairly elaborate costume changes. So, to keep the audience entertained she runs video footage. I pulled this off of youtube; it is in concert footage. People, I laughed my ass off. It was priceless. Had I known that it was part of the show, I would have paid for the tickets. I was on the aisle, and I was practically rolling. I think my ex-husband got the idea, but he never said a word. Again ~ priceless. Now, I ask you... how can a teenager be so smart and a grown woman be so stupid? That is a rhetorical question. I really don't want any answers to that one. Remember to turn off my music player at the bottom of the page.






Anyway, it gave me a whole new admiration for Taylor Swift that I didn't have pre-show. There is this voice in my head saying, "If she is strong enough to not care what people think in public, how can you be so 'walk on eggshells' in private? You don't live in the public eye. Newspapers don't care what you do." All of this was still processing (I am a slow processor), when I listened to Not Afraid and got my dose of Marshall Mathers. Here was one more person living right out there in public. Just throwing it out there. In Taylor's case, she is this sweet girl, who hasn't hurt anybody. In other words, life hasn't smacked her good yet. In MM's case, it isn't such a pretty picture. In Lucy March's case, she isn't blameless, either. She is coming to terms with all of the things that she did wrong that brought her to where she is now. Publicly. All of these people are publicly claiming their crap. Their weakness. Their fear. What they did right. What they did wrong. And in the case of Lucy March, MM, and me... we are all on this journey of reclamation. Reclamation of our lives. We are all telling our truth in order to get our lives back. The difference lies in how we tell it. MM is really living out loud. LM is living fairly loud. I am living anonymously and hoping that my ex-husband doesn't find my site.

I am reminded of a quote from the movie She's Having A Baby. It is at the beginning (the wedding scene) when the parents and grandparents are on both sides of the aisle. No one seems to be all that happy about this wedding. One of the grandpas says, "People don't mature anymore. They just stay jackasses all their lives."

Bray.


all images found at www.weheartit.com

5 comments:

  1. if being adult means not caring about what other people think than I'll never be an adult. sometimes I think I'm all about what other people think about me, about what I do, etc.

    I think that the reason that the more famous you are the less you care about haters and, in general other's negative opinion is because you also are aware that you've got a lot more people who admire/love/appreciate/etc you than those who, like us, live anonymously. I mean, Eminem can say "f/ck this, I'll say what I want, they can even sue me, I still have my fans". I think that's what it's about. But I understand how you felt about not wanting to blog on FB.

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  2. eminem can say f*ck this because he really, really, really doesn't care.
    I really, really, really don't care either. I don't get embarrassed owning my mistakes.
    You know why. everyone makes them. Anyone who says they don't is lying. Or really insecure.
    You are absolutely right. When life smacks you hard, frequent, and often, when you are young, you learn that to survive You are going to have to learn to listen to your own voice. To live a life you are comfortable with, that you can feel good about, you have to learn to listen to what your own mind is telling you.
    Nobody else is going to live your life. When you come to the end of it, it's your end and no one else's. People who give you advice that contradicts your hearts desire...I would say 10 percent of that is good intentions toward you..other 90 percent, self interest.
    You aren't a jack ass...you just haven't learned to, as the inimitable Marshall Mathers has said "take it through to the middle finger"...
    that is what it's there for. To tell people to back off.

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  3. OH I totally agree with the not caring about what other people think idea! If you spend your life worrying/caring what others think you are denying yourself the freedom to be true to yourself. I live by the moto: "this is me, take it or leave it" Life is too short and way too precious to spend it walking on eggshells sacrificing your own happiness so that others can be comfortable an happy. Everyone deserves happiness and everyone deserves to be comfortable. Before you can ever be happy in your life with anyone by your side, you must first be able to embrace yourself 100% and be totally happy with yourself. LOVE YA ROBIN!!! Just the way you are!

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  4. I understand the concept but the practice is not as easy always. I my ex-wife's case I am through caring what she thinks but not in everyone's case.

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  5. I'd add an addendum to this and say that being an adult isn't caring what CERTAIN people think. It's, as you posted a video of once, getting a filter and picking and choosing who gets to be on your committee (that's what I call it) about who gets to voice an opinion on your life and who gets to vote. My mom gets a vote, my best friends get a vote, my boy gets a vote...

    My exes, whether I'm on friendly terms with them or not, don't get a vote. My fair-weather friends don't get a vote. That reporter? Didn't get a vote in Taylor's book (and GOOD FOR HER, dammit) because Taylor's got a strong committee already of people who love her and support her and don't say idiotic things to her (or imply that if she writes about guys who are bastards actually being bastards that she's no longer datable. Are you freakin' kidding me?!)

    Great post. Just wanted to add my own two (or four) cents to it.

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