Brain Spew in Lieu of Wit

 I suppose it's fitting that I write my return post the day before Father's Day. My dad, of course, is a central figure in the creation of this blog.  For those of you just joining me on this journey, I started this project when I was in therapy. It was recommended that I start a journal, as many therapists advise. Despite my best efforts, I have never been able to maintain a personal journal. The closest I really have would be my poetry, but those are...incomplete for this purpose. So, I thought I would do better with an audience - I am a writer, after all.  This choice came with many consequences, though thankfully nothing so permanent as a lost relationship or impact on my "day" life. I do well enough of that without a public forum. I'm taking this project up with a better understanding of myself, a firmer grasp on how to discuss deeply personal experiences without being cruel to those included, and the wisdom that comes with three? five? years of hard-won grow...

I have spent the past several years working to build discipline. I want to stop flinging myself from moment to moment and becoming frozen in the infinite and terrifying possibilities of the future. I want to finally  follow through on a plan deliberately and directly. I want to be the determined, diligent, laser-focused person I read about in self-help books. I continue to discover that the process of becoming a disciplined person is both more complicated and significantly simpler than I had initially realized. I am, by nature, a stubborn and goal-oriented person. I am lost when I find myself without a destination, as if I'm untethered from reality. I have leant heavily on calendars and lists, often over-organizing to the point of distraction and panic. I ground myself in these things... often to the point of immobility. I am also the person who finds validation in being Busy. Even as I build space in my schedule, I am still overworked and only stop when my body shuts down. Th...

I have spent a lot of my life trying to define what kind of life I want to live, as if pasting words to my actions gives them meaning. I do that with so many things - my identity, my relationships, my purpose. I knew what I wanted to do from the time I could talk. I spent 20 years of my life working toward teaching high school. Crashed. Spent 10 years working toward and in teaching university. Crashed. I've spent the last three years spinning without direction, without a classroom or a whiteboard at the end of the tunnel. I'm gaining some footing as an office manger, tutor, organizer. Significantly less as a writer. It's hard to have a voice when I've centered my identity around Teacher. I'm learning and integrating that it hasn't changed - just shifted from my core and became a limb or a subtitle. I am constantly defining myself by my work. A friend told me that's "internalized capitalism" and I sometimes worry that's my entire personality. ...