Stream of Consciousness Sunday: Reinventing Myself

I knew this day would come but honestly I thought it would be later this year. This is the last Stream of Consciousness Sunday post. I won’t be hosting the meme anymore and while I never set out to teach anyone anything, I hope that you’ve learned the quality of writing that can come when you just let go and start writing.

I debated with myself about this quite a bit. First, the facts: Sunday is my single highest traffic day of the week, unless I post something really remarkable, which seems to be less and less often. I hesitated to give that up. Also, I really feel like this is a community here. Even if it’s off and on, it makes me read your blogs. I feel like you are all my people. Yes, I’m laying claim to you: Julie and Gabriela and Tricia and Erin and Rachee and Rachel and Dominique and the other Julie and all the new people that take the plunge and decide to join in.

But Saturday night rolls around and it feels like an obligation. For me personally, it’s defeated the purpose of why I started it in the first place. And I rarely get to all of the posts. That’s not fair. I want to read your posts. I just never seem to make the time to do it.

When I was talking with my husband about how I’m feeling about a lot of aspects of blogging lately, he encouraged me to just let go. So I’m going to start doing more of that. Starting today.

Please come by and read my blog once in a while and please send me your post links in Twitter (that’s where I do most of my reading from). And hopefully join me for one last brain dump.

Today’s (Optional) Writing Prompt: What does it mean to reinvent yourself?

Here we go…

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I moved, in case you hadn’t heard. In case I hadn’t drilled it into your head about 50 millions times. I have a new house in a new state. I have a new car. I have a new grocery store and hardware store and parks to discover. And yet, I feel stagnant. I don’t know what it is and I can’t shake it.

Professionally, I’m all over the place. Personally, I feel chaotic – like I’m barely keeping it together. It’s all first world problems. Truly. My struggles are internal. Somewhere along the way I’ve lost that sense of internal satisfaction.

Maybe it’s because I still, after all these years, don’t know what I want. Don’t know what success looks like to me. And these are all things I’ve written about SUNDAY AFTER SUNDAY. And still, I’m not getting anywhere.

I try not to take in the big picture. I try not to compare or get overwhelmed. I try to take it one day at a time. But when your days aren’t always good, it makes it hard to think about how to make the next day better.

And truth be told, I feel like I’m in the kitchen cooking. I’m throwing in one ingredient at a time but I have no clue what the recipe is. WHAT AM I MAKING? How do I know if I need more salt or more sugar if I don’t even know what IT is? And Sundays are when I seem to wax philosophical about all this stuff. And frankly? I’m starting to get on my own nerves. My writing feels like a broken record and I don’t want to write it probably anymore than you want to read it.

Honestly, I found I’ve become better at talking about a product or a brand. At writing a cute or humorous little story that integrates right into the tagline of a product. And that’s okay. I’m glad I can do that because that stuff pays. But it doesn’t bring me internal satisfaction. It’s when I really write – the stuff in my heart – that I feel most proud. And it’s when people really seem to read my writing. But nobody pays me to do that (and sorry – that little ad on the sidebar was just an experiment at making money; I think I can now afford bubble gum from the revenue).

So today, I took myself on a drive all by myself. I really wanted retail therapy. I wanted something to make me feel better, even if only temporarily. So I went shopping.

I ended up at Walgreen’s. Drug stores are harmless enough, right? And that’s when I had this realization that it wasn’t the chaos in my life or house or computer, it was within me. And I needed something to snap me out of it. At the store, I bought hair dye, because I feel so much better with dark brown hair than with this blondish highlights. I bought some magnetic purple nail polish (no, really, it’s magnetic). And I bought one of those silly overprice hairstyle magazines with styles that nobody would ever wear. But I bought it anyway. I’m going to do some thinking before I pick up the phone, or worse, a pair of scissors.

Then I went to Tuesday Morning where I had been eyeing up a few framed prints. Two prints of fairies. Very girly and vintage and very unlike me. But it’s what I wanted. And I’m going to hang them in my office.

What’s next? You guessed it. This blog is getting a facelift. Radical, I think. I have no clue how I’m going to do it. I’m not going to pay anyone. I might bribe my sister to help me with some of the hard stuff. But it’s time to reinvent myself. Again.

This was well over 5 minutes but considering this was my last official brain dump, I thought you might indulge me. THANK YOU FOR BEING PART OF MY COMMUNITY!

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This was my 5 minute Stream of Consciousness Sunday post. It’s five minutes of your time and a brain dump. Want to try it? Here are the rules…

• Set a timer and write for 5 minutes.
• Write an intro to the post if you want but don’t edit the post. No proofreading or spellchecking. This is writing in the raw.
• Publish it somewhere. Anywhere. The back door to your blog if you want. But make it accessible.
• Add the Stream of Consciousness Sunday badge to your post.
• Link up your post below.
• Visit your fellow bloggers and show some love.

Now…

1. Grab the button

(it’s over in the sidebar)

2. Write your post.

3. Link up here.