Motivation: An excuse by any other name
Monday, March 30, 2009, 8:18 PM

One of my longtime online writer buds sent me an email the other day to ask about the real reason why I wasn't writing [blogging]. Because I suspect more than one reader has wondered the same thing, I thought I'd post about it. Besides, since I immediately cringed after reading the email, I figure it's a good question for me (and for the cough-emailer-cough).

So. Okay, this is me trying to post about that question. Just don't expect this to make a lot of sense and we'll get along like the Reese's At Last chocolate-covered peanut butter Easter bunnies. (You've seen the commercial, right? If you haven't, you totally didn't get that last part, which means I need to be a cliche and say me=honey and you=bee.)

Surely, my emailer wrote, it couldn't be just because I lead a boring life.

Because hell-and-damn, what a cop-out, right?

Yes.

You got me, got me, got me.

My attitude sucks lately. That's the big reason.

There are lots of reasons why I don't post more often, but who wants to read them when everyone is already surrounded by similar, equally-woeful, craptastic reasons? Should we really take turns pouring salt into open wounds?

Don't poke at my wound, though. I'll yelp and barf.

So, my friends and co-workers are losing their jobs, some of my family is dying and hurting (and the guilt, oh, the guilt, because I am here and not there), I still haven't won the damn lottery, life friggin terrifies me, it's the end of March and it was just December the other day, I'm getting gray hair and feeling self-conscious about it, I feel stupid and mortal (can't someone just bite me and turn me into Bella?) and I remember all too painfully well when I didn't feel mortal on the edge of death (what a mockery), I'm terrified and heartbroken for certain somebodies and trying not to let those feelings drown me, and sometimes? Sometimes it's hard just to care enough to shower in the morning.

I go to sleep at night and wake up whenever later with the devil breathing down my throat, unable not to imagine that the world is hell. Because the dreams are hell--it's hard to feel and be rational after having one--they're all too black and real at one-thirty in the morning. What happened to the nights when I'd sleep all the way through? Where the hell is Mr. Sandman anyway? Sleeping on the job...hah! Pun.

The other reason I'm not blogging more often is that when I do blog here, I have this crazy idea that unhingey goodness should ooze-ith between the words. I don't want anyone's shoulders to slump when they come here. I don't want to make anyone sigh with disgust or unhappiness (or relief because they're just glad they're not ME). I've always been the kind of girl who wants to make people laugh. I make myself laugh all the time and that's good, it's saved my sanity more than once, but I crave validation just as much as most anyone else does.

Wish I didn't. Life would be easier if I didn't.

So when I'm not posting, a large part of that is because I don't feel as if I'm standing long enough in the right space. Which I know is unrealistic, and that uncertainty just feeds on itself the longer I don't post...So yeah. That. I don't want to burden myself by writing heavy stuff that may or may not burden someone else.

I'm also lazy and shy and I'd rather get a tooth pulled at the dentist than share my deepest, darkest. At least now. Today. Who knows what tomorrow or the day after will unleash.

This is another one of those posts--my 27th to be exact--that will probably be saved as a draft because I'm too self-conscious to post crap like this. It's one thing to be bare and eloquent, another thing entirely to be incoherently whatever. And it really pisses me off that I even think about writing painful stuff in such a way that will entertain or touch anyone other than myself. Stupid! Why? It feels fake and wrong.

I hate bitching. Some might call it reflection. Having the guts to be honest. My sister can bitch and it's like some kind of art form. I'm not sure why, I'm still trying to wrap my mind around how she does it and gets away with it. Me? I'd just rather grin and ask if you're a Twilight fan.

Are you?

Fine, I'll take up scream therapy. Or angry pillow-smashing, which is a pretty good workout as long as I remember to breathe.

Motivation? Where to find it [to write]? It used to come when I ached the worst--and then I couldn't write the words down fast enough. But I also couldn't read them afterwards because it was nothing but vomit, so I'm sure this doesn't really count towards finishing a prah-jeckt.

And then the motivation came when I was feeling good, happy and right with the world. When I felt all-awful-goshdarn-shucks-safe to be "facetious".

So, motivation: where to find it? Still up in the air about that...and it's going to involve deep, hard, on-going digging.

You first.
9 Did the Unhingey Jiggy Engage in Unhingenosity
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