When I started this blogging lark over a year ago I didn’t really know what I had in mind.  I wanted to move from the LiveJournal world where I’d been happy but contained to a bigger sandpit.  Sure I had the dreams that every wannabe blogger has of being the next big thing in the blogging world, but that all seems like too much hard work.  I wanted to have a place where I could experience who I am and record the things that I enjoy.

I had been reading (and still do) Decor8 and Design Sponge and thought I’d like to have a blog in the same vein as those.  A place where people could come and look at the prettier things in life and dream of how they’d make their homes more their own.  So for awhile there I tried to find things that I thought other people would like.  It went well, and I enjoy it, but it never really rang true with me.  I struggled to find the motivation to post regularly or add anything more to the discussion.

Then I found Kindness Over Matter and I thought, “Maybe I’ll just spread joy and happiness.  I like joy and happiness so I’m sure other people will too.”  And for awhile there it worked, but again it didn’t really sing true to who I am.  I started to miss the intimacy of blogging about the real world; about what was happening to me.

But I was scared.  Scared that if I shared who I am, warts and all, that people would reject me.  So I continued to live a double life.  I bottled up what I was thinking and only showed what I thought people would find acceptable.  Then in November when I made a life changing decision I couldn’t keep it in any longer so I started Skinny Girl Trapped.  I started to blog about the personal side of life.  The things that I was going through medically and how it was affecting me.  It felt good to let it all out.  To have a place where I could just vent and rant and share about what I was going through and engage in a discussion with those reading and commenting.

Still something was missing.  It was too much hard work trying to keep the two sides apart.  To try and be me – but what I thought was a sociably acceptable version.  So I let somethings slide.  I avoided other things and I stopped doing what I enjoyed because of fear.  Fear of rejection.

It’s not a new thing in my world this fear.  It’s been here for a long time.  Not exactly sure when I let it in or when I started letting it dictate my choices in life.  Then last night while laying in bed thinking about my current state of affairs I saw the connections.  I’m living my life from a place of fear and it’s causing me to make decisions and react to things in a way I’m not happy with, or proud of.  I’m losing sight of who I am because I’m worried about what other people will think.  I’ve let myself be ruled by the critical voices in my head and not by the voice of reason I know I have.

Lately I’ve been operating out of a “hurt them before they hurt me” mentality.  I’ve been on the defensive, and I don’t like the person that makes me become.  I’ve felt attacked and so instead of just letting it wash over me I’ve decided to go on the defensive.  I’ve been negative, judgmental, irrational and hurt.    Which is not the person I want to be.  It’s not the person I believe myself to be at my core, but it has become the person I am putting out into the world.  It has to stop.

It’s time for me to drop the guards and be the person I know I am.  I need to reassess what’s motivating me and look at the way that I have reacted to those things.  I need to remember that the people that love me and the people I love will still want to be with me, warts and all.  I need to believe that as long as I’m true to myself then I will find people to compliment my world.

I need to remember that just because I don’t ‘click’ with someone doesn’t make me or them any less valuable.  It’s not a popularity contest and I don’t have to please everyone.  My days as the performing monkey are over and it’s time to move on.

As I lay there in the dark having this mini revelation I also had the accompanying moment of “How the hell do I do that?”.  I’m not really sure how one puts the fear aside and lives a true life.  I have some theories which I’m going to put into practice and see how it goes.  One of the theories involves this blog space.  I need to be true to my blogging self and stop worrying about the “audience”.  I need to do what makes me happy and use this like I used to use my Livejournal.

It’s a scrapbook of my life in digital format.  That means warts and all.   I have opinions and tastes and not everyone is going to agree or enjoy them, but I do.  I also like to learn about the world and debate the illogical reasons of my beliefs and choices.  How can I do that if I’m filtering my world to make it more ‘palatable’ for this mystery audience?

One thing I can do is stop with the double life.  So I’ve merged Skinny Girl Trapped and gnomeangel.  I’ve imported all the posts into the one place so now people will know I’m battling morbid obesity and I’m doing it through radical surgical treatment.  Being ashamed of that fact is part of what lead me to the position in the first place.  Eating to quieten the voices was not the most successful decision I ever made.  So there it is, I’m fat.  Not as fat as I used to be, but still fat.  I’m working on it and I’m ok with that.

I’m also going to start blogging about the little rants I have in life.  It might help me save HUBBY from having to listen to them over and over again.  I find that when I write it down it leaves my system and I can get on with things, where as at the moment I rant and rant and it gets bigger than it should be.  It won’t be pretty and I won’t be apologizing for being a fractured person.  It’s all of what makes the good things about me so good, because under it all I’m struggling every moment to overcome the nasty fearful hateful place that seems to want to taint everything.  Because I’m human.  I’m trying to be the best version of myself, but to do that I need to realise I’m not perfect and I don’t need to be.  I just need to be honest.

Long rambling post short; things are going to change around here.  Not drastically, because after all what I’ve been doing to date has been a part of me (just a slimmed down version, ironically) it’s just going to expand.  There’s going to be some remodeling and hopefully some regular posting.  I hope you stick around, but if not that’s ok.  You’re ok and I’m ok.  It’s all good.