ears wide open.

I think I may be done here. By here, I mean writing into the blogosphere, shielded by anonymity and vagaries. It's been a fun ride, and at the beginning it felt like I was really writing. Back when mySpace was a thing I thought the idea of writing a blog was so...romantic. Then it morphed into some strange place where everyone wrote passive-aggressive monologues at their peers and the world in general. Later, after the feeling we were all invincible wore off, we got down to the business of reporting our progress and just generally performing a verbal lobotomy on ourselves from time to time. Which I guess is pretty good if that's what one needs. But for me, it's been as of late only a place to go when I'm feeling down, or a time-killer when I just don't dare to do more serious work. A hobby. Avoidance. An old brown shoe.

It's been dipping one toe in the water to see if it was as cold as it seemed out there in the internet abyss. It is--even colder, really.  

Maybe that sounds dramatic, but if it's all the same I've discovered something even more inspiring and more frightening. Sharing my life's work, not with the faceless, but with people who are right there--who have names, who have families, who understand (or not), but most of all, people I can see, standing there in front of me, who feel with their guts. People with the guts to understand my message, even if it's not as palatable as another option.

It's a time of change for me. A new chapter in my life, cliche as it is, deserves a fresh start. I'm not talking about a clean slate, because I don't need it. You can't have a new beginning without a history, and I'd like to think I can maintain both. So I need a new place in which to do my best work, and a better way to file away the moments that have built me up or busted me open. But especially, a place where I'm not passively "reaching out" to people that I need and who need me, but rather being wholly present for both of those things to exist. To be real. To be more vulnerable, because that's the hardest thing in the world, at least for me.

Daunting as it seems, I think that ending this chapter also means that I'll gain more freedom. For one, I won't continue to function with the crutch that is feeling invisible. I can write down incomplete thoughts and let them roll around on paper for a while until they form an entire mass. I will allow others to see things, but I'll also be able to see their faces and their feelings, even if they aren't exactly what I'd expected or hoped. I will learn to take criticism, but I will also be guaranteed of the kindness that comes when the cloak of the internet is lifted. We will talk. We will ask questions. I will listen. Perhaps they will read with their eyes open, seeing things as a whole rather than all in pieces. I will hand-pick my readers, with the hope that it will help boost what interest I have in writing as a hobby and something I'm good at to writing because I can't do anything else. And so yeah, I have to leave this behind to get to that.

What I do now is take what are essentially rough drafts of a map of my life and make them complete. Because it's the one thing I was meant to do, even if I never do anything else. Because if I choose writing, then I'm not being lazy by letting it choose me.

I guess what this all means is that I'm ready for something else, even if something else isn't ready for me yet. I'm not even saying I'll never write a blog again. Just not this one.