I’m back.
Sort of.
Well, not exactly.
When I disappeared on April 24, 2020, leaving a cryptic note about being back soon, I honestly thought that I was only going to be gone for a few weeks. I had no idea that in reality, it would become necessary for me to stay absent for at least three months.
Three. Entire. Months.
Even if my remaining interested followers totaled a mere TWO people, I think an explanation is in order. As a matter of fact, if TWO people have followed along all these months, waiting patiently for my return, please know that I truly appreciate you. You are the bomb-sauce for staying tuned! (I see some kind of freebie promotional gift in your future if you let me know who you are. No strings attached, no quid pro quo. Just me, wanting to thank you for being here.)
Anyhoodles!
When my heart calls, I listen. And my heart said, absolutely NO MORE BLOGGING or SOCIAL MEDIA until further notice, for however long that takes. Who does my heart think I am, right? Like, how dare me? How dare I just up and disappear, expecting to come back to followers of this little microscopic dot, on top of one sand grain of a blog? Phffft! Talk to the echo, missy. Good luck finding a reader with a pulse.
Here’s the thing though. If I had to do it all over again, disappearing for practically four months, existing in my writer’s cave, sun up to sun down, without talking to a soul for ten hours, daily—I would DEFINITELY do it all again.
I mean, LOOK at me. Did you SEE the pictures I posted to go with this post?
Who the fuck is that woman?
When I first began blogging at On Becoming Maria (the blog) back in April 2018 (over two years ago), it was to build my courage as a writer. Because it’s one thing to have a hobby, to notice how much pleasure you derive from the hobby, and to notice how other people seem to enjoy your doing it—but it’s a whole other 18,000-foot-leap-from-a-plane kind of thing to try turning said hobby into a career. It feels like your heart is stuck in your fucking throat at every new turn of production.
So, I blogged transparently about the writer’s journey as a way to practice, as a method to get my feet wet, allowing others to read my work. It was a good plan at the time. It worked until it didn’t work anymore.
That’s how best laid plans can go. They can stop working. It’s like creating anything from scratch: there will be trial and error. You get an idea, let’s say it’s for a homemade hammock to put up in your backyard. There’s drawing the design of it on paper, acquiring the needed materials, and then getting down to the business of actually constructing the thing. After hours and days of toiling and sweating—tah-dah! Homemade hammock.
You take a bow, so proud of yourself. You climb in, unsteady and nervous. When it doesn’t break, as it appears to be holding your weight, you exhale, and you lean back, folding your arms behind your head. And then, BAM! Your ass hits the ground.
Then, it’s back to the drawing board as you try to figure out where you went wrong in your design plans.
Uh huh.
Well, that’s kind of what happened to me on the writing journey.
I had to close up shop and get back to the basics of writing life without a reading audience. Why? Because my plan for using transparency—baring my soul on the blog, being honest about my writing journey in real time—as an approach to confidence building, crashed and burned. I can’t tell you all the specifics (yet).
What I can tell you is this—if the unknown scares the shit out of you, you should definitely keep your day job. There is just no way to make any dream come true if terror lives in your heart to the point where you’re shaking like a leaf each time you’re about to hit publish on an essay. Nope. Can’t happen. I was bursting at the seams with the fullness of all my fears.
I’ve changed.
I’m definitely not the same woman who started this blog in the Spring of 2018.
I’ve learned a few things. One, is that creatives—such as myself—don’t operate like other people. While the majority of us each have our own creative side, not everyone chooses to live the creative life. Creative people are good with being different from the crowd. We tend to march to the beat of a rhythm in our head that no one else can hear. (In all honesty, most of us are fucking weirdos.)
Another thing about creatives is, we don’t mind changing directions—abruptly!—if we have to. We’re usually okay with having to reinvent our content, our products and ourselves.
The woman I was in back in April 2018 is pretty much dead and gone. That woman would never have been okay with showing so much of her legs in public, especially legs with cellulite. Also, that woman would’ve been too mortified to post a picture of herself wearing a sock with a run—unraveling thread? Oh, hell no!—or trying to look looking sexy while rocking armpit sweat stains.
Speaking of sexy, how dare I be so full of myself? I know, right?! I’m just out here breaking all the rules for my age and gender.
All this flagrant newness falls under a glittery and sparkling umbrella called CONFIDENCE. Here’s a fun fact: we all possess it! We’re like Dorothy, dragging Toto through all those changes, trying to get back to Kansas, when the power to do so was right there inside her the whole time, in the click of her heels.
I’ve spent my entire life body-shaming myself, inventing excuses for self-flagellation in every season. First, I was too skinny (you’ve got nothing on that bony looking body that anyone wants to see—cover up!). Then I was a mother and wife (you’re a grown woman with responsibilities; show some class, don’t dress like a tramp—cover up!). Finally, I thought I was too old (you have gray hair and cellulite; your body’s too flabby—cover up!).
I was mean and punishing with my inner-voices. It’s really no wonder I was so full of fear all the time.
Well, I spent some much-needed and extended hours in isolation, cut off from the influence of the opinionated and outspoken world. I’m not going to lie, it wasn’t always fun to be by myself at first. There were days when I missed chatting with friends and loved ones. There were days when I thought everyone was going to hate me even more than they (probably) already hated me. Spending long hours alone can make a person paranoid. However, understanding all the ways that the mind frequently plays its tricks on us helped me to move beyond the paranoia.
Once I told the mischievous parts of my mind to zip it, I was able to pick out the more wise and loving messages of the mind-chatter.
I realized something fascinating—I’m going to die one day. I’m going die, having wasted my whole life feeling ashamed of my body. I also realized, there is no way I’m ever going to develop any real confidence—certainly not the long-lasting kind—if I allow shameful feelings to keep weighing me down. So, I made some changes.
And now I’m back (kind of).
It’s a brand new me.
You might be thinking, yeah right. You’ve always been this way: selfies, writing about self-awareness, spreading your annoying positive spin on things.
That’s fair. I don’t blame you for the doubts.
Here’s what I have to say about that:
If you are truly here for it—getting all the sordid details, having me spill all the tea, giving you The Real on what exactly goes down in the crash/burn scenario of dream-chasing—you’re probably going to want to check out my first book, Dream-chasing From The Margins. It’ll be available on Amazon by December 1, 2020.
In the meanwhile, since I am still hard at work on my second book—the book that started out being first, until I put it aside to work on Dream-chasing— I will only be back here, occasionally, when I can make time.
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