Vulnerability Confessional

I've been lying to you.

Well, lying to myself and because of that, being dishonest with you.

The lie was that my writing is vulnerable. I'm not as good a writer as I want to or could be in part because I'm still hiding. It's so easy to be cavalier, entertaining Christine. To be the one who makes people laugh and has a quick come back. The one who teaches her kids we do not take shit. It’s comforting to think I might have some kind of unique insight into Joan Didion’s writing or learning to read like a writer. But let’s face it, I don’t really. 

When I get vulnerable - I feel it in my body. My chest tingles (I feel it now) and my fingers feel a little funny. Those physical sensations are fear,  because I've moved beyond the effing comfort zone to say a thing that is true to me.

A note I wrote to myself.

Here's my truth.

It’s harder to talk about all the things I'm afraid of, all the ways I fear rejection from you and all the other people in the world. It’s hard to talk about how embarrassed I am by some of the choices I’ve made and the confusions I live with and the questions that keep me up at night.

I haven't sent a message to the folks on my StoryCraft mailing list because I'm ashamed that it withered on the vine while I was busy moving country and then moving house again, and dealing with mental and physical health challenges. That I've tried to carry on, but worry what those people will think when they find my work has shifted from writing about storytelling to the randomness that is this newsletter.

Every week there are no comments here, I feel sad. It makes me wonder what I'm doing wrong, or rather not getting quite right. But the thing is that if I'm not turning up - and turning up here means lifting the skirt on my soul a little bit - then who are you talking to if you leave a comment? The Christine Writing Bot?

When people, kind people, ask me what I want to write about, I get all prideful. "I'll write whatever you want" because it's so easier to write what people ask me to write than to write from my heart, to fail to convey a feeling I want to convey.

There are so many near-secrets or rather truths I avoid, thinking myself an artful dodger when I'm more likely the morose kid at the party.

But this whole format of writing, it only works if I turn up. You aren't reading this newsletter because you want to be informed. Amazingly, you're reading this because some twisted part of you wants to know what I'm going to say next. Thank goodness for that.

So I have to make a promise here - to me and to you - to turn up more. Not to write more regularly but to be more honest, vulnerable, and present here.

My rational brain tells me that it will send you to the unsubscribe button in droves. That's alright - it's been nice having you around. But secretly I hope it will do the opposite. Maybe you'll be curious, kind of like watching someone with food on their face and wondering if they’ll wipe it or if you should say something. "Let's see how Christine is going off the rails this week" sounds much more interesting than "what kind of wisdom is over on Wonderings now?"

Hadn't thought about it that way. 

Perhaps I am also always writing about Joan Didion, only instead of writing to understand what I think, maybe I write through the noise in my head to find a nugget worth holding on to. It’s prospecting, not writing.

What do you think?