My goal with writing this blog was to get a little comfortable.
To publicly practice writing and work through the avoidance of putting words to my name.
The dangerous thing about writing is it can be too solitary and too internal. And I don’t think that’s always a good thing.
Just because we as people can tend to think we know more than we actually do. If I leave things in my brain too long instead of putting them out into the world where they can be challenged I might never know I’m wrong.
And sometimes it’s really nice to be wrong.
I’ve been wrong about the way I thought people felt about me. I’ve been wrong about how hard I thought something would be.
I’ve been wrong about what I thought would make me happy.
I’ve been wrong about a lot of things that were very nice to be wrong about.
But this blog is less about trying to be right or wrong or really even trying do anything at all.
It’s really mostly about stopping myself from living in avoidance.
It’s a way to take an action and exercise my confidence.
Confidence definitely needs exercise.
I’m not a fan of fake it until you make it. Or of going all in. Or do or die.
Maybe that works for some people, but they are psychologies I’ve tried that don’t work for me.
They’re stressful. Not fulfilling.
I personally find it’s not only much easier, it’s also more effective to let my confidence be shaky. Let my goals be very small and let my confidence develop itself by winning small battles.
I’m not going to talk too much about my dad.
His death did shatter my way of interacting with the world and I had to build a new one.
But honestly I needed to build a new one anyway.
I had no idea how immature I was until I got through the grief.
Grief is rough. But you do get through it.
Not going to lie though, I did play the victim for a bit.
Going through grief and playing the victim are two different things.
My dad died right when I was feeling happiest in my life and I made that mean something.
Like if I ever felt happy again it meant something terrible would happen. As though my dad dying was the world punishing me.
How damn self centered is that? He was the one who died, what on earth would it have to do with me?
I called my dad every day. He was the type of person that got very excited about everything. I could tell him about the bug I found and he’d treat it like I was telling him I won the Nobel prize.
He was insanely considerate. If he made you coffee he heated up the cup first. He knew exactly how every person liked their eggs and made different eggs for everyone.
My dad gave extra attention to all the little things most people forget. And he just always chose love. Never his ego, never his hurt, never his fear. The love went above everything else.
Losing someone that provides that much love, attention and security is brutal.
But human beings are very tough. Very adaptive. We don’t give ourselves enough credit. We can get through most things. We can turn most disadvantages into opportunities.
We can solve most problems in our lives and we always do when it feels important enough. It’s just sometimes we let ourselves avoid or put off how important it is.
After my dad died I didn’t do so well.
In what way did I not do well? I was just pretty insane. I’d long since quit porn by then. The Mektoub film was buried in bankruptcy and controversy.
I was desperately hung up on my ex. I was a chain smoker. I was working in a restaurants and just was like, a super uber bitch to everyone.
I sort of stayed like that for a few years. Didn’t date. Went totally celibate. Yelled at a lot of people like a psycho bitch. Got fired from a few places.
I wrote a lot. A lot, a lot. None of it was intelligible. Even I don’t know what the hell I’m talking about it in a lot of it. But I’m still rather proud of how much I wrote during those years. Even if it was so badly most of it isn’t readable.
Jess lanai 