Hello, friends. It’s a pleasure to meet you.
For years, I’ve thought about writing a blog. Daydreamed about it. I tossed it and turned it over and over again in my mind. I’d sit at my desk at work in a conservative sweater set and last week’s Downy Wrinkle Release-d wool slacks (no judgement, the struggle is real getting to the dry cleaners on a regular basis; I am the reigning champion of the periodic $300+ drop-off of essentially my entire work wardrobe) and imagine myself a blogger. I’d drive to and from my daily appointments and errands and five ideas blog posts would come to my mind along the way…and such witty ones, at that!...but then they’d disappear into the ether of my subconscious before I reached my destination and had a chance to jot them down. I was living in the clouds, quite a bit; indulging a fantasy of being a writer, daily, hourly. My dreams of writing were like jet-writing in the sky, visible for a few minutes before melting into the ether, a fading trail of ephemeral condensation in the cerulean blue. All that to say, these dreams were not of concrete stuff. I ticked along life, day to day, week to week, successfully performing my role in the practical, non-creative box of life that I had created for myself. It wasn’t’ so much that things felt wrong; but they didn’t exactly feel *right*, either.
And then one day, something changed; I began to believe I could make my dreams manifest. I set an intention to live in gratitude and authenticity; and realized that for me, that meant writing, speaking my thoughts to the world. I slowly lifted the lid of my box and began to peek outside.
Fear prevents us from doing a lot of things. For a long time, fear has prevented me from writing. Fear of being judged by other people, of judging myself. Fear of not being perfect enough or entertaining enough or witty enough. Fear of what happens if I truly expressed myself.
I think it’s a common thing for women, to live with that fear. To live with their own personal form of self-expression bottled-up inside of them. Because we're not expert at it, after all, we tell ourselves. Not trained professionals in it. Because it won’t be perfect.
Oh, the excuses I came up with to avoid making this first post. Oh, I’m too tired to write! I have way too much work to do to go home and write! I mean, I have a puppy now, I can’t possibly find time to write! (As I write this, said puppy lies, completely passed out, at my feet…this little guy is either on 0 or 100, but that’s another post for another time…) OMG I can’t figure out how to post to SquareSpace IT’S JUST TOO HARD. I actually ended up writing this post in my bed on a series of discarded index cards of Norweigian nouns (sigh…long story) because my excuse otherwise would be that I just don’t have time to grab my laptop from the living room to write. But I’ve called bullshit on myself. Because really what all of these excuses are about is a fear of self expression. A fear of not being perfect. A fear of putting a less-than-perfect version of myself “out there” for all to see…to judge. A fear of failure.
A fear of leaving my little box. It’s warm in here, people!!
But here’s the thing; I’m coming to realize (this writing experiment is sort of a work in progress for me) that you can never fail at expressing yourself, if you do it with honesty. And that it’s impossible for honesty to be anything other than perfect. It’s impossible for honesty to fail.
So this is a blog about my self; about my home, my travels, my lifestyle trials and travails, my voice. It’s about creating at-home flower arrangements on a budget (Costco for the win), adventures cooking with my Instapot (it is the truth!), the outrageous amount of coin I just dropped on anti-age skincare (Mom always said that an ounce of prevention is worth a pound of cure but DAMN I’m not sure she would have said that if she knew that La Mer would be $150/oz but damnit this shit works), how I find space for myself in a hectic life where it seems that all I have time for are my obligations to other people (let's just say this is still a work in progress). This is me putting myself out there.
So, here’s to the journey of self expression. And to climbing out of the box.
Danice