This post has little to do with books or reading. It is a post about me, and since I love books and reading they will probably make an appearance or two.
This is a post about passion, or rather lack thereof.
I've been going through some things lately, things like depression, feelings of utter failure and lack of energy.
Today is the first day I feel a little closer to the me that I like so I decided to do some reflecting and thinking about my life.
I've been fighting feelings of failure lately. Right now, my life seemingly has little direction. I need to find a better job. That's my life right now, trying to get hired again at Starbucks. Swallowing my pride. There's nothing wrong with working at Starbucks. I like being a barista, but when I was 19 thinking about what my 24th year would look like it was drastically different than the reality. It looked like this-
I had a little office in Colorado where I practiced massage, just me and maybe a part-time receptionist if I ended up selling any product. I was able to support myself with my practice and I was going to school in the evenings to finish my bachelor's degree in English. I occasionally wrote wellness articles for a little local newspaper. I lived alone in an apartment with a dog, probably a Shepard mix, that would go almost everywhere with me. I was busy, I was happy...
I get teary eyed and wistful when I read that. I am happy where I am now, I do like how things how turned out, but there's one thing I'm missing that the girl in my dream had- passion.
In high school and in college I journaled daily and wrote your typical angst poetry and published it to MySpace. I had people tell me how well I wrote and how they loved reading it. However, I've had a public blog since 2010 and I've yet to have anyone outside my family comment on it. I've racked my brain as to how I could become a popular blogger. I've tried all the tricks that the other successful bloggers have used and yet I get nothing. I purposely narrowed to scope of this blog to try and fill a niche or something like that.
This morning while doing the dishes (household chores are the best time to reflect on your life I've found) I've figured out why I feel like a failure, why things aren't working out for me. I once offended some random poet on MySpace because I wrote about PETA and how I don't believe most of the things they post. I changed the blog according to his opinion which I don't remember now what it even was. The point is I didn't want anyone to feel offended, and that has carried over into my blogging. I tried to keep this superficial and have taken to using a gross amount of !!!! because that what I've seen other bloggers do. I've been doing all this for the wrong reason. What made me a good writer was my passion for expressing myself using words, sometimes strong words that made an impact. I've been trying to do the opposite of that for the past three years trying to make everyone of my imaginary audience happy and trying not step on any toes. Even with my review of Supergods! I really really don't like Grant Morrison, but I felt like I had to give him a fair shake in my review. He did drugs and cast spells to write some of the series he did that's not art that's a farce and I don't respect anyone who tries to prove that wrong. (And he killed Jean Grey in New X-Men, unforgivable).
Anyway-
The point of all this self-reflection is that I want to put passion back in my writing, my massage, my life. This blog is my starting point of all that because I quite honestly don't really know how to do that in the other aspects of my life. My writing, however, I know.
This blog is about books and reading and me. Since I don't just read books everyday other things will undoubtedly pop up on here. But, I do read quite a lot so it'll still mainly be about books and reading. I won't try and cater to an imaginary audience anymore, I'll probably still use too many !!! because it's grown on me and I might end up offending someone,most likely a Grant Morrison fan, because that's how these things go.
Once upon a time I loved to write, I loved massage, I loved books, I loved life and I really wanted to live in Colorado and own a dog. I'm finding my way back towards that path because that was the right direction to go in.
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