A lot of what I do here on communicatrix-dot-com, or try to do, anyway, is externalize my process. Not because I'm a narcissist, but because I learn best from other people who externalize their own processes, so it's kind of natural to do the same.
But the other reason I externalize publicly is to do my part to stop Nasty Crap in its tracks.
Nasty Crap is the stuff that kills slowly. It's the cancer that chokes off love and hope and joy; it's the fallout of fear. It looks like many things, sexism, racism, rectitude, and shapeshifts like a motherfucker. Nasty Crap thrives on darkness and complicity, proliferating freely via its carriers (the Unaware, the Willfully Ignorant and the Truly Evil), crippling the future and leaving profound collateral damage in its wake. Pretty much anything can be turned into a tool of Nasty Crap, alcohol, money, God, sex, provided it's accompanied by by an awesome and towering willingness to ignore the Truth.
And of course, the more I turn it around in my head or bat it about in therapy, the more I see it really all boils down to (drumroll, please)...fear. (As if you didn't know.)
A couple of things have gotten me thinking about this recently.
First, for the first time in my life, I'm fat. Not FAT-fat, like my slack-jawed countrymen prowling the Midwestern airport food courts this weekend. Still, I'm definitely working a serious muffin top. I could blame inertia and butter, but I know the real culprit is fear. Living out loud is hard (i.e., engenders fear); buffers are deadening and fattening. So there's that.
Second, for some reason or another, I let the fear through recently. I'd been playing with it for a while, rolling it around on my tongue, bouncing it off of walls, but really dispassionately, like a scientist or a sociopath. When I actually sat with it, I had a Grand Mal meltdown that scared not only me, but The BF, as some of it had to do with my primary relationship, which much of that super-dee-dooper personal Fear stuff does. For me, anyway, Fear of Abandonment and all.
Here's where it gets tricky RE: the blog. To be honest, truly honest and transparent, the way I need to be if this is going to work, I have to express it. But to be responsible, I need to release it in a way that is useful and that will not harm others. As I was reminded on a very smart mailing list I subscribe to, one should never say anything on the interwebs "that you wouldn't want your mother, boss, children, spouse or the police to read about." To that excellent list I would add, "or that might hurt an innocent party, without a really, really good countervailing reason." You know, like stopping Hitler or something.
So this radio silence has been about me and my fear of moving forward, as has the muffin top and bad habit creep. I will not shed all my buffers all at once, I'm sure, but I'm back in the battle, or the saddle, again, fighting the good fight, airing my dirty laundry, mixing my metaphors.
I'll keep you posted on the muffin top...
xxx c Image by Proggie via Flickr, used under a Creative Commons license.