Begin Where You Are

I’ve tried to start this many times before but I always ended up quitting before even beginning. Why do I keep doing that?

“I don’t have anything interesting to say”, I would tell myself. Over and over again. “I am too wordy. I am unstructured. I don’t really know what I am saying. No one will want to read what I have to write anyway. So many other people are doing what I want to be doing but they are killing it and doing so much better than I could ever hope to be so why should I even bother. I don’t know enough. I will get around to it later…”

Well, with an internal dialogue like that, it’s no wonder any projects get nixed before even getting going. I feel the spark of inspiration, I feel the pull of intuition, I feel excited and may even take the first few steps towards manifesting whatever idea I’ve come up with, and then the inner dialogue starts up again, effectively smothering the creative spark. I retreat back into my little den until the pull of something else tries to entice me out again. And so the cycle keeps repeating, for many things in my life, as it does when it comes to wanting to start this blogging thing. Clearly, there’s a reason for it and maybe it’s just about remembering why I have been wanting to do it to begin with.

I had a Livejournal going back in the day that only two of my good friends regularly read and commented on and it was fabulous. It was just a space for me to write, process, experiment, express, and I didn’t care if anyone else ever saw it. I would go back and read previous entries, glean more insight, recognize patterns, and really just marvel at the unfolding of my life and appreciate the ups and downs of it all. It was for me, it was my space, and I could be me. Unabashedly.

I have missed having that space. Sure, I could keep a journal or a running Google Doc for whenever I feel the urge to write something down, and I certainly do have a whole bunch of both going in print and digital forms, but I guess I have always felt this necessity to share. To relate. To connect.

I get why my inner dialogue takes a turn for the negative and self-deprecating whenever I feel like I am on the verge of something interesting or important. It fires up again whenever I feel like being more social too. It’s a defense mechanism meant to protect me, which I can appreciate. Cancel culture these days is vicious. People can be vicious. Why would I put myself out there just to have people tear me down for sport?

I’ve always felt like “other”, but I also always knew that there had to be “others” like me and there was strength in numbers. So as much as I have been afraid of putting myself out there, I have always sought community and even gone so far as to try to create community spaces if there was need. I’ve pushed through discomforts and offered myself up in some sort of community service capacity in many ways throughout my life for the purpose of connecting, relating, sharing and support and I think I keep coming back to wanting to create a public blog space because if I can reach/support/inspire even one person with the messy example of my life and journey, then it would be worth it. Courage is not the absence of fear but being able to act in spite of it, right? I am courageous. I can do this. I am doing this.

“Was writing all that really so difficult, Kelly? You should have started sooner.” It doesn’t matter. There is no beginning and no ending. I am ever evolving, constantly arriving. Now’s as good a time as any.

And so here I go, beginning where I am. Right here. Right now.