There is an irony in the name of this blog and my reticence to simply begin.
There are a couple of reasons beginning doesn’t feel simple:
The first is perfectionism; something I’ve always struggled with, and something that won’t save me. Should I really do it? Should I start something new? What if it’s [various synonyms for “bad”]?
The second is navigating my explicit desire to not be, or become, didactic. Hand-in-hand with that is not wanting to be performative and write for an audience, real or imagined.
I’m struggling daily to parse out motherhood, marriage, and the particular set of challenges that God has allowed into my life, in His infinite wisdom and boundless mercy, so that I might slowly, steadily, painfully be purified. Glory to God for all things!
I am not here to teach anybody how any of these processes are done best, and if I ever start to think I’m qualified to do that, I should probably delete this blog. Distinctly but relatedly, I am not interested in adding to the pile of digital content that is perpetually argumentative: laying down point after point, obsessed with convincing the reader to conceive of something, or do something, a particular way. I’d like to consume less of that, and I don’t want to create more. In fact, I’d love to train myself to be less argumentative. I’d like to be softer.
Why write, then? Here are some thoughts:
- Writing things down helps with processing and understanding. First, something happens; later, we try to make sense of it and see what we can learn from it (sometimes immediately, sometimes much later, and sometimes again and again through different lenses and stages of growth). Writing aids this tremendously, and reinforces memory. I’ve leaned on it all my life.
- Writing (especially in digital spaces) doesn’t actually need to read like a thesis all the time. One can write without being a “content creator,” opting out of that framework.
- I can’t always express the things I want to verbally, but I have found that often, I can write them down—surely imperfectly, but more closely to my original intentions than what I could have said aloud.
That feels like enough.
I don’t have a single, set theme or topic in mind. I don’t have a particular argument to make. I strive not to “teach” (may God aid me in this).
Saint Anthony the Great said, “Every day I say to myself: today, I will begin.”