#52 - Talking To Myself

Well, cat’s out of the bag, I am fully back on my bullshit and coming out with a solo podcast.

I’ve been meaning to do it for a while, but even after recording and scrapping like nine “test” episodes, I realized that the first one is always the hardest to hit publish on and it’ll just continue to get easier after that. There is no amount of prep and planning that will make that step less daunting, I am never going to be fully satisfied before I do it, and at some point in this whole process I hit big “shit or get off the pot” vibes and decided to go for it.

Anyway! Talking out loud is not a thing that’s difficult for me to do, I absolutely am an out-loud processor (who often craves validation and attention but am deeply uncomfortable with that truth and the act of asking for either of those things), and I have a lot of thoughts that often tie into bigger things and I cannot continue to monologue them at my sister/boss while we’re in the middle of a workday anymore.

So instead, they’ll be in podcast form! My plan is to…not really have plans. I know for the sake of ~marketing this is not a great idea—but fuck marketing my goal is not to go any sort of viral or amass a major following, that’s fucking terrifying to me I just want to make things and share them with people who may be interested. The actual goal is just to publish once a week, probably on Tuesdays (because historically that’s been my podcast day and I deffo do not want to double up a Friday commitment of a newsletter and a podcast because that’s just setting myself up to be overwhelmed and then I will quit and instead I’m going to manage expectations)! So, it’ll bounce around topically, I’ll have some guests on occasionally to talk through tv and movies and pop culture stuff, maybe break out my history notes and talk about how Andrew Jackson vs JQA presidential election is actually one of the most important and informative moments in electoral politics, and I’m really excited to find out where it goes and what this will all grow into! And I didn’t realize that it was going to send when I hit the button I hit so hey, that took a lot of the scary pressure off. (And if you got the early email version I’ve updated it to include a summary of my best journaling tips!)

It should be available to subscribe to on all the podcatchers soon enough (Apple is taking a while to approve it and a few of the other hosting platforms need an episode to be live before they’ll letcha in) but in the meantime feel free to listen to it here!

I’m trying these days to have very human expectations of myself rather than fret about perfection. It’s been tough out there in the big wild world, and there’s no guarantee that it’s going to get easier any time soon. So I’m trying, once again, very intentionally, to be kind to myself. Not in an “anything you do is fine because you’re wonderful” kind of way but in a “hey you’ll actually be able to relax if you wash the dishes first” kind of kindness. You know, holding myself accountable for all of my actions blah blah blah.

Anyway, this morning I reread my piece from last summer about getting my life together because that was where I first talked about journaling and morning pages, and the second paragraph really read like a gut punch. I just wanted to go back in time and hug myself—of course I had a massive identity crisis, of course I was blaming myself for stagnated unchangedness, and it’s interesting to look back and realize that I had identified all of the pieces of the puzzle as to why I felt like my life way no longer my own but I had yet to put it together. But clearly, that was only able to happen because I was writing, I was reflecting (regardless of how fragmented it was or how long it took me—an hour for three pages? Wowza, there would have been no way to fit all six in if that was still the case!).

I remember writing that piece and being really afraid that I hadn’t been doing the shit long enough to say it was working—and honestly like a week after publishing it I had one of the worst depressive spirals I’ve ever had…ever. I felt like a massive fraud! Here I was bragging about getting my shit together and then the moment the thermostat hit above 90 I had a full meltdown. So, this time around, that’s uh, not happening. And not just because it’s already hot and I even helped a friend move on a 102-degree day a few weeks ago (I am untouchable this summer, I have a tiny rechargeable fan I won’t shut up about!!) I know myself so much better now. And it’s due to my unwavering commitment to picking the pen back up no matter how long I had set it down for, and realizing that this wasn’t a habit I had developed just as an escape—it is the thing that allowed me to escape (relatively) unscathed.

Coping used to be my superpower, and I don’t want it anymore. I’m really trying to push and advocate for my needs rather than accept what I’m given out of fear of rejection if I ask for more. Untangling my perception of self from the imagined perception of others is an ongoing everyday thing, but I think making things, writing things, and saying things, is an indelible way to cement that I can do things for myself just because I want to. (And that I should!)

I think art is hard to create for the sake of art. It’s so rare that we have guidance telling us to be creative for creativeness’ sake and not the outcome or the praise or the attention. And making something and declaring it good enough to be imbibed by others feels heady, but if you remove the self-judgment and any expectations of reaction, it’s uh, a lot less frightening? It’s a stretch but it’s also like…anti-capitalist. And I know that folk songs don’t pass policy, but art matters anyway.

So let’s go make some, yeah?

Yeah!