I am staring at the blinking cursor, not even sure how to begin.
The truth is, I’ve started a million blogs a millions times, and I always abandon them because after a few months, they feel so obsolete. I feel embarrassed about what I’ve written—either my views have changed and the old ones feel uninformed and ridiculous, or no one has interacted with my posts, leaving me wondering whom I am even doing this for.
I’ve gone through a few periods of ideological shift in my life, and they are always very disconcerting. The most recent one began in 2020, and it has been such an unsettling shift that I stopped posting about almost anything political on my personal social media because either I just didn’t know what to think about the things I used to feel so sure about, or I was afraid of rejection from people who view alternative opinions as the ultimate threat to either their safety or their peace of mind. This has left me in a very odd place where I don’t fit into any one camp and don’t even know what identifiers to assign to myself, except maybe “politically homeless.” The in-between nature of it all makes me wonder where I’ll be a year from now, or five years from now, and that makes me very uncomfortable. How can I write about anything if I feel so insecure in the place I am now?
To be fair to myself, it’s not that I’m a wishy-washy person who floats around with every change of the tide. In many cases, it’s felt like the ground has moved out from under me, so that, while I’ve standing in one place, the “camps” I felt like I was a part of have moved until I’m left with some tent lines in the sand and the smoldering remains of a campfire, wondering what happened and how did I get left here? While still holding views that were the standard liberal views eight or so years ago when I made the shift from Republican to Democrat, I would now be considered “far-right” by some of the people who consider themselves standard liberals. I’m frequently faced with the question: have I changed, or has everyone around me changed?
This confusion makes me afraid to write, but it also compels me. I do my best thinking with a pen in my hands or a keyboard under my fingers. The ability to write something out and see my thoughts staring back at me helps me to understand them better and either solidifies those thoughts for me or reveals to me that something is wrong and there’s more to discover.
I don’t know who will read this or, indeed, if anyone will at all. And I don’t know how long I’ll write here before I feel embarrassed and shut it all down. But here I am, for the time being. Under a fake name for now, because it feels more comfortable—less pressure, and maybe it’ll allow me to bide my time before people I care about get mad at me and remove themselves from my life. I don’t know.
What will I write about? Politics. Religion. Culture. Parenting, because my journey as a new mom has definitely had an impact on the Great Shift. Literature, because with me, everything comes back to literature. Gender. C0v1d. Race. Judaism. Christian fundamentalism. Gardening. Whatever it is that I need to process. Read what you like and leave the rest.
I don’t know where this will go, but I’m here, and I’ll write. And if you’re here to read my rambling thoughts, welcome.
