Responsible blogs.

I wrote an essay this week about the relationship between freedom and responsibility in writing. I focussed on blogs because at the beginning they did, and to some extent still do, represent a completely free and democratic platform for and practice of writing. But I got stuck when I thought about the responsibility of blogs, what is it?

Is it now the responsibility of bloggers to keep themselves free from commercialisation, from advertisements and dominating corporations? Is there a responsibility to maintain that democracy and that freedom which was so exciting at the beginning (when I was a baby)?

Is there a responsibility to a readership to provide constantly interesting content like a magazine or a tabloid? Is there a responsibility to keep up the niche of the blog, to resist straying from a theme? Is there a responsibility to say something of use?

Or is the responsibility to keep writing no matter what? Sometimes it will be useful and insightful and beautiful, other times it will be nothing. But the writing is still there, the freedom is still there. No one has to read it, that's the beauty of it.

Blogging is golden, really. I believe that. And we are responsible for whatever it is, whatever it means, whatever we are sharing with the world. And responsibility is good, I think.

So boring.

Sometimes life is insufferably boring. Despite the entirely random possibility of my existence, despite my astonishing aliveness, I can still be bored.

Boring bits don't always seem to exist for other people, even though they almost definitely do. No one is bored in films or books because they skip the things that would be boring. You never actually see anyone in a TV drama brushing their teeth for exactly two minutes. I find cleaning my teeth boring and yet, often, once I have finished cleaning my teeth I have nothing else to do. At least brushing my teeth gave me something to do.

I often wonder if the celebrities I like to admire have also sat in a doctor's waiting room for 45 minutes, or if they have accidentally stared at their phone for for an entire hour refreshing the timeline every five minutes for one new tweet. And, despite being bored of this process, have managed to stay in the same position for so long their hair from the shower they never got dressed from has now dried into some greasy, knotty mess.

I wonder if other women spend whole boring hours of their life in compromising positions in the bathroom plucking hairs from places they can't even see. Whole hours. At least it makes the time pass. Sometimes time is so excruciatingly boring I want it to pass quickly.

And yet it is a miracle that I can even experience time passing. It is phenomenal that I have the ability or even the desire to brush my teeth and I dismiss it like it is nothing. Time is passing and it can pass as slowly as treacle dripping from a spoon and I am lucky enough to watch it happen.

It is random and wonderful, even, that I can feel boredom. I can feel everything! I can choose to give myself an activity, no matter how mundane, when I decide that time has become uninteresting.

Life is insufferably boring at times. Life is insufferable, even. But how wonderful is that? How bloody wonderful is that?

Worry.

Worry really grips your heart, doesn't it? Whether it be full-blown panic or the impossible idea that you might finish your dissertation you can be completely paralysed by it.

It takes a lot to overcome worry, to let it slip away, because that means an acceptance of the worst that could happen. But it also gives you the momentum to move forward.

I spend a lot of my life in the grips of worry, if you hadn't noticed. I can worry about everything and anything given half the chance. I can worry about symptoms of horrible diseases I definitely don't have, I can worry about my appearance, I can worry about the mess in my bedroom, I can worry about my family members getting into accidents every time they leave the house, I can worry that I'll die without finding a partner, I can worry that I am not good enough in literally any situation. I can worry, that's for sure.

Essentially I worry about everything that is beyond my control. Natural, I guess, but I often surpass the average person's capacity for worry. Sometimes I think I have actually gained a skill in worrying. I am so good at it.

But there is that moment when the thing I was worrying about happens, or it doesn't, or I eventually come back to reality as I release myself from that paralysing grip around my heart when I think "none of that was worth it, was it?". It is so exhausting to worry, it takes up all of your time. I am so physically tired out by it. Worrying is harmful. No one ever felt better after an afternoon spent worrying they weren't good enough for romantic love (for example).

And then I'll worry about worrying. I shouldn't worry so much! Stop worrying! You mustn't worry!

God, I'm so tired. I really must stop worrying.

Hold out your hand.

My mum keeps telling me to hold out my hand whenever I am scared or worried. I come to her to tell her that something is wrong, or that I am frightened, or that I am not believing in myself. She just says "hold out your hand and keep the thought there. Just hold it out from you and let it be."

I still have not held out my hand. The thoughts I have brought to her are still very much in my head, still making my chest tight, still making my whole body tense up. I am stubborn. I do not want to believe that I can push the thought away. Sometimes I cling onto the thought because it feels so real. If it is not real then all this energy is for nothing. If I do not worry then the thing I am worrying about will actually happen. I can't hold my hand out and let it be!

What I really want is for my mum to make the thoughts go away without me actually having to do anything. I want her to tell me everything will be fine and I want that to be true. I don't want to have to be in control of my thoughts because often it feels like they are happening to me and I can do nothing about it. But I am very much in control of those thoughts. If I were not in control, I would not be actively letting them continue in my head instead of holding out my hand and observing them, then letting them go.

I think that my worrying is a way for me to try and control what does and doesn't happen to me but really it does the opposite. If I was better at letting it all be I would definitely be happier. The constant tightness in my chest, the active listening to negative thoughts does not feel good.

But panicking and worrying are such powerful, overwhelming things. It is so hard to listen when your mum says hold your hand out. How ridiculous, that will never work. It does work though, doesn't it? I really must get better at listening to what she says.

Lovely cocoon.

From where I am sat in the back of the car right now I can see your small, brown head bobbing around. You turn to your right and smile, which makes me smile. The Driver, as we like to call him, is merely a silhouette to me. So tall I cannot see through to the front without leaning round. I remember when I was very little and car journeys made me sick. Now the comfort of The Driver blocking my view, tall and safe and constant, is wonderful.

Sometimes I sit directly behind you. You and your head popping round the front passenger seat, curling your arm around to touch my knee. The way it feels so safe when you hold my hand.

My backseat buddy gets those smiles too. You reach round to touch her knee, and then mine. The Driver does the same as if you are reassuring yourselves that we are still there. We are still there. Sometimes I reach out to hold her hand and she obliges me by sticking her finger out. She says my hands are small and clammy. I bully her into holding it for just a moment.

We spend whole journeys like this. Reaching out to each other, making each other laugh, giving smiles that send love. We sleep a lot. Not The Driver, The Driver is not allowed to sleep. But in the warmth of the back of the car and the lulling of the engine I always manage to nap.

It makes me feel like I am a child again. But in a good way. I am not helpless or afraid. I can exist without you always being there. But in these moments, in these long journeys in the car, I am back in that lovely, lovely cocoon. Our family unit sleeping and driving and being content all the way to wherever we are going next.

Up on my high horse.

Yesterday I tried to educate someone on the damaging effects of sharing rage-porn posts like the one about “people wanting Santa to be a woman or gender neutral”. I am not sure if my message eventually got through or just pissed her off but the post was deleted, and quite a few people read the comments. A tiny, minuscule victory of some sort. Not a drop in the ocean, more like a drop of condensation down a window in middle class British suburbia.

Normally I don’t bother. Normally I switch off to Facebook friends who express outrage at the inaccurate, continuous and unfair reportage of marginalised groups. The outrage coming from a foolish belief in the toxic story twisted from someone’s innocent, discursive tweet rather than from the deceitful journalism. And it is foolish, because the stories are meaningless and none of it touches their lives. I never see them get that angry at, say, reports about trans people who were murdered because of their identity. That is more outrageous to me.

But there it is. “To me”. Those are my values, not theirs. Who am I to sit on my high horse to tell them otherwise? And I am on a high horse; I am not affected directly by transgender politics and I sit in a comfortable, educated position from which I can pass judgement.

So where’s the line? Where do I use my privilege to educate? Where do I know when to shut up?

I can’t leave it. If I can help expand one person’s view I have to at least try. I’d be a hypocrite if I kept my mouth shut.

I just have to watch out, because it’s so comfortable up here on my high horse. It’s so easy to theorise, to moralise, when you are not touched by the problems on either side.

Putting it off.

Putting it off. As if the moment will be better in a future that does not exist. “I will feel more like it then.” 

I was going to write a piece on love, because I want to write a longer piece on love. And yet here I am writing about putting things off in an attempt to put off the piece on love. Maybe I should just sit down and write that.

Sometimes I think if my surroundings change I’ll feel more like writing. If I go to a cafe, if the music is right, if I’m looking out from the window at a busy street. I’ll write then. I’ll do my work then.

I am also hard on myself. If I binge-watch a series, if I have a lie in on more than two days in a row, if I have a nap. I feel bad about it.

But if I just sat down and did the stuff I needed or wanted to do, if I didn’t have such a struggle in my head about it, I could relax without any hassle from my internal monologue.

I wonder if I could just get that voice in my head to shut up. Well, we’d all be much more chilled out without that problem.

The thing is you don’t take much in of anything when you’re constantly telling yourself you should be doing something else, all the while another voice is telling you to put it off.

It is a wonder I get anything done with this endless monologue. Endlessly putting ‘it’ off, endlessly berating myself. All a figment of my mind, I suppose.

I did not write this blog post in a cafe, the rain running down the window, a hot cup of coffee steaming. I wrote it on the sofa on my phone, finally finding the energy to pause the TV. It may not be a post on love, but at least I stopped putting it off.

And that’s the first step, right?