Wednesday, January 5, 2011

Honesty in the New Year

No, being more honest in the new year is not one of my resolutions. I already consider myself an honest girl. However, I do not consider myself to be good at appropriate honesty. I feel that I already wear my heart on my sleeve, embarrassing friends and strangers with my honesty; but have been told lately that I do not, that I can actually be hard to read. But when and where is it appropriate to share those feelings? And with whom?

As I'm trying to compose my thoughts and this paragraph, I'm sitting in a busy coffee shop. In my line of sight a couple is arguing. Or rather, she is giving him a piece of her mind over something that he just did or said. Just as I was thinking, "not appropriate," she stopped. Now they are huddled over their laptop in apparent harmony.

The worrisome thing about letting it all hang out on a blog is that you don't really know who is reading. The people that I really admire, though, like Maya Angelou, publish their deepest feelings and we are all grateful. I suppose I'm afraid that I'll lose one of the few friends that I have, when they discover that I'm a bit wacko. But do I really want friendships in which I'm required to be guarded? How much empathy and patience is appropriate to expect from friends? I know that when I am in the deepest times of depression, my emotions and much of what I might write would be inaccurate and highly embarrassing later. Also, my writing is not as skilled as Maya's; how much of what I write will be misinterpreted?

The fact is, I like to write, I want to improve my writing skills, and I don't write unless I have a potential reader. I've tried writing this blog, off and on, about various things, all relatively mundane and discovered that even if I have a couple of readers, the writing feels, to me, well, mundane. When I try to write about personal, more important topics (like "The Happiness Project"), I feel afraid, worried of being judged not only for my writing, but also for my thoughts and feelings. And here we arrive at my resolutions, one of which is to live with less fear, to act with energy and in love.

2 comments:

  1. Reading this reminds me just what a great writer you are. PLEASE keep writing, Heather, knowing you have an audience that loves you (especially those who you have allowed to see the whole you, as you should) but also knowing that you should be selfish and do it for yourself!

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  2. Aw, thank you Rachel. I love you!

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