from my crooked heart

I’ve written before about plurality and the issues that arise from it. If you don’t remember, and I don’t blame you if you don’t (I don’t even remember what I’ve written most of the time), I was wrestling with the fragmentation of my identity, and my inability to reconcile those distinct parts. In other words, I gots issues, yo.

The reason why I’m returning to this concept is that it has played an integral part in my negligence of this blog recently. Things have been really difficult recently in my personal life.

I responded as expected: I spent a lot of time contemplating life and writing. I wrote five blog posts in full explaining my thought and emotional processes in response to recent events. But, as you can probably tell, I didn’t publish a single one of them.

Why? I can already hear you asking. Just kidding. I don’t hear voices in my head.

I didn’t publish because I didn’t know what boundaries there are in having a blog. After waiting this long to post, especially with respect to what has happened, does there need to be pomp and circumstance in my return? Does there need to be a grand sweeping gesture in which I employ more poetry than prose in expressing myself? Or is it acceptable to do a post that is completely removed as an attempt to move forward?

Because of this uncertainty, the content of these posts were varied. Some contained emotion-filled recollections. Others were abstract interpretations of the way in which my brain copes. And one of them was about my inability to make commitments, exemplified in how I sleep: with most of my body under the covers, save for one leg.

Maybe these posts will be published sometime in the future. But maybe not. The folder of posts in my laptop has tons of unpublished and unfinished works. Every time I try to continue a post like that, though, I become inspired by something else and that new post takes precedence, pushing the other one further back in the queue. Maybe these posts will meet the same fate.

But I digress. My point is, I didn’t finish these posts because I let my work define me, instead of the other way around. I was so swept up in making sure I reacted in the correct way that I stifled any creativity.

Being self-conscious sucks. And if there’s anything I don’t want for my blog, it’s for it to suck. So from this point on, I am going to do my best to express myself fully, with as little censorship as possible. Also, I’m going to keep in mind that this is my blog. I shouldn’t have to worry about breaking any rules because I’m the one making them.

Yes, I’m still upset. But, as some women in my family have shown me recently, it’s important to stand your ground.