I've never been good with my words...
An essay on learning to write again and cultivating boundaries with sharing after years of "influencing" and oversharing for views.
That’s why I’ve always gravitated toward visual forms of expression like photography, painting, sewing, etc.
When I was young I used to write down how I was feeling instead of saying it out loud. Conflicts and heavy feelings would be passed back and forth on a legal pad to my Mother because it was easier than uttering any words of confirmation on how I was feeling or what was wrong.
Always scared to share. Scared to speak. Scared to say the wrong thing or to have my words twisted.
I cried in kindergarten when I got cast in the school play with a speaking part. Cried because I couldn’t find my voice to tell them I didn’t want it. Cried because I would have to speak. Of course, upon crying they realized I was not a good fit for the limelight.
I’ve never been good at being under the spotlight. The pressure builds to an unbearable level and I crack.
Lately, I’ve had to reconcile with my feelings on the internet and social media and success and what I actually want in my life vs what said internet and social media pushes and promotes.
Even with my smaller following there was a pressure for growth for growth’s sake. To share so much of yourself and continue to feed the machine and build yourself up. To turn yourself into a business. To be the product for sale.
I found myself feeling like my kindergarten self. Crying at rehearsal because I couldn’t utter the words, “No, this doesn’t suit me.”
I write to process. To work through my own inner world. To share what I cannot speak. To communicate my whole self.
For the past few years, I stopped writing. I became scared to write. Scared to say too much. Scared to share too much of myself with the wrong people.
See it’s difficult to be selective on social media and hard to be private when your writing is about these inner dives into your own humanness and mind and the lessons you learn along the way that have been tainted with very personal pain and tears and joy.
It’s a dance I’m learning to take part in again. Writing for others to see. Sharing myself without sharing all of me.
This learning started with the practice of simply keeping a daily diary. A ledger of how I feel. What mundane things I got up to during the day. What questions popped into my head and how I responded to those questions. What inspired me. What challenged me. Writing to release. Writing to remember. Writing to rejoice.
I’m grateful. Grateful for this process. Grateful to be coming home to myself. Grateful to feel safe enough to begin to share again.
In this process, I know some things will be shared. Some things will not. Some things will be alluded to only to never be elaborated on or discussed again. I am re-learning, after years of being told to overshare for an “audience” that I am allowed to share myself in a cultivated manner to preserve my sanity, safety, and peace.
We don’t need to (and probably shouldn’t) subscribe to a culture that tells us that you need to overshare your life to make people stick around, interest others, and become successful.
Nor should we demand that from others.
I’m grateful for you and this space and this community that has grown to support me and allow me the safety to come home to myself as a human and an artist and a feeler of complex feelings.
Thank you for being here and seeing me and accepting me as I am.
Until next time.
xoxo,
Roo
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Thank you as well for sharing part of your life with us, for sharing the struggles, the emotions and feelings, for sharing tools that can help others transition into the better and much more. Me seeing that I’m not the only one that struggles with those specific things has help me see certain inner conflicts with a different perspective. I identify a lot with your content and wish you the best always ✨