Can I Do This?

My last post was about a year ago.  Some of the reasons I stopped posting:

the Boston Marathon bombing
Malaysia flight 370
some unkind words

Then it was hard to come back because there are always sad and horrible events happening in the world.  And I asked myself if I could do this.  What were my silly words/thoughts when real stuff was happening out there? People dying, families left devastated without answers.  What was I doing? Who was I to keep on squawking about trivial things?

The unkind words sealed the deal with my leaving the blog.  In my mind, bloggers are people who put their words out there and can handle whatever comes back at them.  Clearly I wasn't ready to do that yet as I was still smarting from a harsh indictment of what I'd written months after the incident.

Then my friend Mary died.  The kids and I went to her 100th birthday party and a few weeks later she was gone.  How could I be so sad about someone passing at 100?  Especially someone like Mary who lived life so exuberantly?  We'd been in writing class together for 6 years and I always loved hearing her stories.  She started teaching a writing class in her 99th year!  Her passing smacked me in the head.

As did a book that my friend Bridget gave me called The Gifts of Imperfection by Brene Brown.  I have a healthy skepticism of the self-help genre, but she's the real deal.  If you've not had the pleasure, look up her Ted talks on vulnerability and shame - each only 20 minutes long.  She's funny, self-deprecating, and wise.  I highlighted, underlined, and wrote in the margins of that book and I'll be buying her others.  One concept in particular grabbed me: she says we can't wait until we're perfect and bulletproof to step into the arena.  Okie dokie.

So I started thinking about my arenas and my fears and my shame and when I feel vulnerable.  And I started to feel very anxious and embarrassed and vulnerable!  But I kept reading and thinking that we all have arenas in which we are meant to stand and live authentically.  How will I get there?

Writing is important to  me, or so I keep saying.  Chronicling my thoughts for my children is important to me, or so I claim.  So let me get back to this.  Let me step into the arena.  Can I do this?  I'm not sure, but I'm going to practice doing it once a week - whether I publish here or scribble in a journal.  That I can do.