Marie at 1 Write Way

And then back again

The following is a “blast from the past.” I’m in the middle of cleaning up my blog when I find this WP post I wrote in February 2013. I don’t think much has changed since then.

After a 3 years’ absence, I’ve decided to re-enter the blogosphere but with a different purpose. I simply want to write, and I’m tired of writing in my head. Initially, this blog was to be a resource to me and anyone who happened by, a writing resource with links to websites and other blogs devoted to the art and science of writing. I wanted to be useful. I didn’t want to write about Me. I didn’t think anyone would be interested in Me. But recently I finished reading Quiet by Susan Cain and now that I have a better understanding of myself (shy, sensitive introvert that I am), I want to make the jump from thinking nobody would care to I don’t care if nobody would care … about Me. I want to write.

Writing used to be a way to hide from a world that frightened and confused me. I was very introverted as a child, no doubt in part because I needed but didn’t get glasses until I was 10. Everything scared me. Life scared me. And yet there were times when I could act outgoing, although I don’t think anyone much liked me when I was like that. I was very emotional, would cry if anyone looked at me the wrong way, and crying wasn’t something tolerated very well in my home. It was a sign of weakness. Which meant I cried a lot.

I wrote trying to imagine having some control over my life, wanting to believe I had a better relationship with my family than I did. Wanting to believe that at the end of the day, they loved me. As a young adult living away from home, I wrote in journals, trying to decipher the world around me. I had moved to a place radically different from the one I grew up in. I embraced “sex, drugs, and rock n’ roll” and spent too many years making a mess of myself. And writing very little.

I went back to school, took writing classes, tried using my writing as I had in the past, to work through and survive both physical and emotional trauma. What I always lacked was confidence. I never wrote with any real confidence in my writing. When anyone did try to support me (most often, a teacher), I almost literally ran the other way. I don’t know what I was afraid of: most likely, failure, but what kind of failure? I grew up feeling like a fraud, and I still harbor some of that today. I’m afraid I will disappoint. I disappoint myself every day, but I’m used to it.  I hate disappointing others. And without confidence in myself, I couldn’t very well use the support given to me. Only a fraud would do that.

So now, decades later, I have very little to show for my writing. I’m way past the halfway mark of my life, and I do have many regrets, not the least of which is I didn’t write more. I might have had a different story if the internet had been around when I was young and isolated. Although there is a lot of crap out there, I’ve come across writers that I never would have known if it wasn’t for the internet. They are not all published writers, but they write. They seize the opportunities that the internet provides. I think some of them might even be shy, sensitive introverts like myself.

I have regrets and some of those regrets I can do nothing about. But the regret that I didn’t write more … I don’t have to die with that regret. That one I can change.

Well, yes, I could write more. I’m thinking about it. In the meantime, I got sunflowers to tend.

And a snugglebunny …

Marie A Bailey

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24 responses to “And then back again”

  3. I can empathize. I went from hiding the fact I have cerebral palsy to having most of what I write being about cerebral palsy. Now my debut chapbook is forthcoming and I have to actually come out of my introverted shell to promote it.

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  6. Marie, the good thing is that you have time to write. I’m glad you’re writing your blog and writing in other ways.

    Yes, take care of those sunflowers and your precious snugglebunnies.

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  7. Yeah, it’s good to take stock of what’s truly worthy of our time & effort and what feeds us rather than depletes us. Being open to possible changes of what we deem to be those things in our life is also part of the equation. I took a step back from blogging, but now that I’m back to wanting to send out what I’ve written occasionally, I discovered I’m blocked from using the paragraph block due to recent upgrades I decided to not make. Ugh. So now that I have the bug to blog again (and have 2 years remaining on my self-hosting) I’m trying to psych myself up to do the deep dive on all upgrading involves…We’ll see. Meanwhile I get to read your musings and hear of your activism exploits whenever you post them on your blog. :-)

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    • Laura, your reading of my blog and your comments mean so much to me. I really appreciate that you are part of the best in my world. And I hear you about the WP “upgrades.” Some time ago I broke down and adapted to the block editor … and maybe that’s one reason why I write on WP less frequently 😉 I don’t understand why WP insists on making it more difficult to write. Even though you can move the blocks around, cut-and-paste editing would be faster than incrementally moving a block. And yet, I don’t want to move to another platform. I occasionally repeat a WP post on Substack, but I don’t like being a writer on that platform.

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  8. I hope you write as much as you feel compelled to do so. I love your writing including your unfinished novel I had the opportunity to read!!! But your knitting, your gardening, your cats all are part of the same language.

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