Navel Gazing…Is that lint?

I’m doing that thing where I set a timer for myself and I feel compelled to tell you guys that I’m only giving myself 20 minutes to write this so that you don’t judge me when it’s not perfect.

Where’ve I been the past week or so while I haven’t been blogging?

I’ve been navel-gazing. I’ve been wondering what it is I’ve been doing here all these years on this blog and thinking that when it comes right down to it, I really don’t measure up. But the thing is, I don’t even know who or what I’m measuring myself against.

Myself, I guess.

To find a piece for Listen To Your Mother, I read through nearly every single post I’ve ever written here. I’m ashamed to say how disgusted I am with what I found.

I found whining. I found boring and mundane updates about what I’d eaten for breakfast. I found a metric ton of posts about my weight and my body.

I found a lot of things that, in the grand scheme of things, are just adding to the noise. They’re moments of my life, sure. And one day I might want to look back and read about that excellent breakfast we had that one time. (Why?? Why would I want to do that?)

But the truth is that I’ve written a lot of crap over the years. A lot of crap.

There have been some good pieces, for sure. Some things I’ve said of which I remain immensely proud. But…ugh. It’s so lost in the flotsam floating around in my archives.

It feels like I’ve been blogging without a purpose, but then isn’t the purpose of blogging just…to blog?

I struggle with perfection. It’s a problem. I know.

No one expects me to be perfect. No one, not the people who matter at least, think perfection is possible. They don’t care if I’m not perfect.

But I care.

And I’m not even talking about having my life appear perfect. (I think it’s safe to say that I don’t try to show that I have it altogether.) I’m talking about with my words.

I’ve spent so much time over the past five years not saying things for fear of offending or scaring people away, trying not to make myself a target of ire, that so much has gone unsaid because I couldn’t say it the right way. I don’t want to be the person who just spouts off whatever’s on her mind with no thought or concern for how it will affect the people who might hear it.

It’s been a long time since I’ve been okay being that person. I’m not sure I’ve ever really been that person.

I don’t ever want to be that person. But I don’t want to let go of this thing here, either.