Your Writing Life
Those of you who've known me a while likely know that this is about the fifth address I've had my blog at. In all truth, I don't even remember them all. But every now and then, I decide I need a fresh start, a reinvention. And because I don't publicize it much and have been relatively inconsistent in my posts, I can mostly do this without difficulty. I now have almost all of my past blogs centralized into this one, and quite frankly, this scares the hell out of me.
I'm at the point where I have to decide whether I want to attach my name to all these years of angst and revelation. And I'm really not sure. If you can read this, you're either someone I trust or you know someone I trust. Because changing the address every so often allows me to hide from the people I once opened myself up to, but who I no longer want to see inside.
Last week, I met with one of my professors. She psychoanalyzes everyone she meets and somehow along the way she made up her mind about me and I'm now trying to catch up and deal with the fall-out. In my meeting with her, she asked me to give her a sense of what I write about. So I told her that I write mostly relationship poetry. She took issue with the phrase and said that I was being too vague and pressed me to articulate what kind of relationship and what aspect of them. So eventually we honed in on the fact that I write primarily about relationships breaking down, usually in romantic relationships, but sometimes with family.
When we shifted to me discussing the fact that I'd recently started writing more about family, I worried that I'd made a mistake in sharing this. I'd already been warned by another student not to give away any personal information unnecessarily, but I let slip that for some time, I didn't write about my family because I didn't want to put things into the world that would hurt them. And she came after me on this and I tried to clarify that my mom is sensitive to people knowing our family business and that I wanted to show care in my treatment of it. This was probably the worst thing I could have said, because she immediately pounced on me, saying that I should lie to my mother about my work, why was she wanting to see my poems anyway?, and that I should never let anything get in the way of my writing life, not even family.
But who makes that rule? I don't agree with it. I think nothing should get in the way of your life, not even writing. Writing is a part of my life, but it isn't everything. If I had to choose between writing and my family, I would choose my family. Every time. Is there really anyone who wouldn't? And would you want them as family if that were true? There are things that I can't write about right now. They are things that I also don't write about on this blog. Because I know the power that words have. I would never choose a path that would only hurt the people around me. There are words that need to be spoken. But they will have their time.
Not everything has to be said at once.
I'm at the point where I have to decide whether I want to attach my name to all these years of angst and revelation. And I'm really not sure. If you can read this, you're either someone I trust or you know someone I trust. Because changing the address every so often allows me to hide from the people I once opened myself up to, but who I no longer want to see inside.
Last week, I met with one of my professors. She psychoanalyzes everyone she meets and somehow along the way she made up her mind about me and I'm now trying to catch up and deal with the fall-out. In my meeting with her, she asked me to give her a sense of what I write about. So I told her that I write mostly relationship poetry. She took issue with the phrase and said that I was being too vague and pressed me to articulate what kind of relationship and what aspect of them. So eventually we honed in on the fact that I write primarily about relationships breaking down, usually in romantic relationships, but sometimes with family.
When we shifted to me discussing the fact that I'd recently started writing more about family, I worried that I'd made a mistake in sharing this. I'd already been warned by another student not to give away any personal information unnecessarily, but I let slip that for some time, I didn't write about my family because I didn't want to put things into the world that would hurt them. And she came after me on this and I tried to clarify that my mom is sensitive to people knowing our family business and that I wanted to show care in my treatment of it. This was probably the worst thing I could have said, because she immediately pounced on me, saying that I should lie to my mother about my work, why was she wanting to see my poems anyway?, and that I should never let anything get in the way of my writing life, not even family.
But who makes that rule? I don't agree with it. I think nothing should get in the way of your life, not even writing. Writing is a part of my life, but it isn't everything. If I had to choose between writing and my family, I would choose my family. Every time. Is there really anyone who wouldn't? And would you want them as family if that were true? There are things that I can't write about right now. They are things that I also don't write about on this blog. Because I know the power that words have. I would never choose a path that would only hurt the people around me. There are words that need to be spoken. But they will have their time.
Not everything has to be said at once.