I Don't Care What I Think

I haven’t written for writing’s sake in a while. I feel so compelled to say something useful all the time now that I’m running ads and my posts are featured on Brazen Careerist. Too bad my most useful and benign article to date, “How to Survive a Bike Ride” brought on the most wrath. It left me confused, dejected, wondering…“How, oh how, can I make everyone happy?”

Oh yeesh, not really. But I had a moment when I realized I took my blog, the one thing I’ve committed to lately that had been unstructured, fun, a love song to the things I hate, and turned it into another pet project for perfection.

Why do I do this? Why the manipulation? Why do I parade myself around on a stage for my own approval? Even the mean comment guy is long gone. He probably can’t even remember my URL, God knows he didn’t favorite me. I can see him feverishly typing into Google: “Yelling into a Quiet Storm?” No no. “Crying in a Breezy Nook?”

He’ll never find me now.

I started this blog to give myself an outlet for the massive pain and regret I experienced over the last year. Writing has always given me sanity. Publishing it online gave me a reason to fight for it. My dad died, and I was running out of ways to say, “I’m sad.” And I started writing because I couldn’t bear talking anymore. I couldn’t have one more conversation about how depressed I was. I couldn’t make my husband sit still while I verbally vomited all over him. I couldn’t chat with my friends and lie about how I was doing OK. So I started writing. I started reading other blogs and writing mean comments on the happy posts about possibilities. I kept doing this until I decided I was kind of an asshole and perhaps life as I knew it wasn’t over.

I convinced my husband I would have a nervous breakdown if I didn’t quit my job. Oh, wait, scratch that – he convinced me. I refused for a long time. Then I realized he was right.

And now, I’m sitting here, semi-jobless ('cause I have approximately 5), happy, and hopeful. I'll write all about my miraculous transformation (and it's seed) some other time, because right now, I'm content enough to bask in it. I don't need to prove to anyone how, why, or when it came about. I'm thrilled I made an informed, adult decision with my well-being in mind.

I laugh because I never imagined I would be happy and hopeful about a me that is a slightly fatter and less prepared for retirement than I was a year ago. But I don’t care! I mean, I care in that I’ll try to cut down on the cookies, and I’ll make a plan for my life, but I’m not going to hate myself and settle into the depression where I’ve always felt the most comfortable. It’s just not for me anymore. At least for today and that’s all I’ve got.