change, now ...

After many years with a janky, inhibiting computer, I am finally typing from a brand, new computer, thanks to the kind trust of a friend and the fire I have lit under myself to get going on the rest of my life. Now that I have some excitement around creating things again (since it is once again easy for me to do what I love), I plan to do much more active contributing of the things that matter most to me to the world. I am also legitimately VERY actively working on getting my book published and building a new website for myself. I am beyond excited about the possibilities and trying to keep realistic expectations of happiness (I think that's one thing I have learned -- both the hard way and the normal way). 

This feels more "Dear Diary" than I would like, but I'm trying to practice accountability in my life. Writing things down is always a major step in that process!

I'm hoping for funnier, better and in general more meaningful posting in the future. And for this blog soon to migrate over to my own newly-designed website at juliarogers.com.

It's been a difficult summer, but growth is magical. And there has been plenty of that.

I am trying actively not to make the same mistakes again, to avoid listening to the judgments of people that might not understand why I need to do the things I need to do or love the people I love and generally not let excuses get in the way of getting things done and thriving on the nourishing food of change.

Letting Go of Conventions

Since in my professional writing life, I follow so many rules -- and in general have found myself lately getting pretty hung up on writing structure to the point where I fail to experiment as much as I should -- I decided to create this blog as an attempt to give myself free range to write with less rhyme and reason about potentially nothing in particular. I'm sure I will not be able to resist the temptation to challenge myself with a variety of themes and overly-plotted-out opinions, but I'm going to try harder to be less concerned with my public life as a "professional writer" and be more concerned with being an actually interesting writer that indeed has some personal thoughts every once in a while that sometimes aren't polite.

I also really want to challenge myself to be a bit more laissez-faire and not take myself so seriously, because that is definitely one of my biggest faults. I was not always like this; I used to fake-vomit up pudding in college at the dining hall when friends would request that I "do something" to get irritating, unwelcome dinner guests to stop talking. In adulthood, I care much more about what people think, even thought the Internet and other invasive inventions have more often than not blurred my personal and my professional lives. Still, I worry too much that I will not be fantastic at everything, so I hold back. As an example, once upon revealing that I could tap dance to a close friend while standing in front of a bar in Williamsburg, I was asked to do it on the spot, in front of a large-ish group of strange onlookers. I refused adamantly and got fairly angry about it, as if the casting director for a Cole Porter musical looking to give me a million dollars to dance in the chorus was going to be standing by and hanging his/her head in shame at the sight of my soft shoe. Sometimes -- and frankly most of the time --people are not going to expect me to have a fully-rehearsed song and dance number (or the equivalent, depending on the situation) ready to go at a moment's notice.

Maybe something about habitual, unbridled creative word release in a public forum will improve my attitude and bring me back to completely un-self-conscious comedy. A dear friend of mine said quite recently (Thanksgiving weekend, in fact) when describing something she had admired about me all these years that I really don't give a damn what people think about me. I think this might be partially true, and could likely be fully true again with a little effort. A status message I posted on my Facebook profile yesterday (not real life, I realize, but sometimes biggish ideas happen there anyway) as haphazard philosophy made me think about myself in more detail and what would make me a much happier human and maybe return to some of my more appealing roots:

"Sleepless with a crowded headful of thoughts from a terrible day,but resolved not to let fearless hopefulness and risk taking go out of style. Our lives will likely be a series of epic failures, but so what? If we're lucky, they'll be hilarious."

I can only hope this is true, and that even the failures bring some degree of personal success ... or at least really great inwardly-directed Schadenfreude.