Tuesday
Jul172012
25 Things I'm Afraid to Write About
Tuesday, July 17, 2012 
- Ethics, morality, and the law
- Gender identity
- The behaviour of bloggers and best practices
- Politics
- Femininity's hobbling impact on females
- Sexuality
- Marriage
- The true number of books I've read over the last ten years
- My own appearance
- Race
- Being a childless, gender variant, queer-identified woman in a straight marriage post-hysterectomy
- Privilege
- Parenting as the ultimate fulfillment
- Religion
- My true levels of anxiety and depression
- Pacifism
- My choice not to have children
- Money
- How much I dislike artificial nails with french manicures
- Sobriety
- My family
- The actual lack of connection between spiritual growth and financial riches
- Plastic surgery
- The ethics around vegetarian/vegan diets
- Love
Reader Comments (29)
Funny thing is? I'm now dying to hear you write on all these things. Those are some fascinating topics!
Write about or from a place of love. Every time. You can't go wrong.
P.S.: when you write about these things - and you have, beautifully - your voice even in it's uncertainty is absolutely compelling.
P.P.S.: Do as I say not as I do.
The hardest thing for me to write about is anything that would make my friends see me in a negative light. All other topics I can intellectualize into words and theory.
I hope you'll write on #11. I don't identify as gender variant, but I do identify as queer, and I've been struggling to write about how being in a straight marriage for 10 years affected my identity (and how I'm having to come out all over again now that the marriage is kaput).
These are precisely the topics I want you to cover and the things I'd like to read about most from you. Just do it!
I know you have written about some of these topics or at least touched on them so I was suprised to see them in your list. Maybe because you were afraid to write about them it forced you to cover all your bases (at least that is my theory - I have lots of theories - none scientifically proven but many eerily logical, LOL). But I wonder if that is what made me enjoy those posts the most. I think they were some of your best thought out and most well written posts. Perhaps the fear made you consider your thoughts and feelings on the subjects more? I don't know. But I really liked how you presented your thoughts and feelings on the matters without trying to force your ideals on others. That kind of writing really makes me consider things that I might have disagreed with or not even given much thought to at all. So I think maybe you should consider giving more time and written space to those fears of yours. My opinion, for all it's worth. :)
I, too, would love to read what you have to say about any of these topics. I love reading your thoughts.
Seems to me that life is all about baby steps, whether I want it to be or not. And, thinking along those lines, you just wrote about all 25 of these things in one fell swoop. Granted, you didn't write in detail, but you did write about them, identifying one of the most important aspects of each: your fear in communicating your thoughts about them, in writing.
Hey, it's a start!
Listen to your heart ~
It's always a struggle to push past those boundaries. Honestly, I think you do it better than most people who blog. I hope you write more about these topics!
I hear you; I've got a list of my own.
I'm curious if there even is a connection between spiritual growth and financial riches. I'm highly doubtful. I'd say there is a connection between spiritual growth and LACK OF financial riches. :)
And I'd actually love to read what someone (parent or not) has to say about parenting being the ultimate fulfillment, because even though I have three of those children people, I do not think parenting is the ultimate fulfillment. Nope nope.
I also agree with previous commenters in that I'd love to read what you have to say about all of these topics.
I wanna read about all of this! Charge a subscriber fee with author approval required. For a "premium readership". I have no idea if this ever happens in the blogging world, but it seems to me that putting yourself SUPER out there should garner some income and a measure of author control.
I'd love to hear your words on any and all of those topics. I'm scared to write about my first marriage, failed relationships, and my current relationship. So wait. Maybe just relationships...
Isn't it funny how unless you tell us you're afraid to blog about these things, we don't have a clue?! After reading about many of the topics you've blogged about already, especially your battle with sobriety, you seem to be one of the bravest people out there! You've got guts and just trust that whatever is the hardest to write about will be the most rewarding. :-)
I don't think I fear as much as I feel inadequately prepared to write about those things. But I kind of agree with Kristen. Now I want to hear about these things.
I'm afraid to write about myself without the humor button turned on. And what I am truly afraid to write about, I won't even pretend to acknowledge. I think that's why I rely on the written word. My brain automatically filters so much and yet so much is still shared with those reading that I renew my free pass to continue without acknowledging the things that scare me.
Isn't it strange how brave we seem to others? Because no matter what you think, I think you're incredibly brave.
I love this list. It is honest and beautiful. I identify with many of the things you've written. I just erased a bit I wrote because I'm not ready to write it.
Anyway, you are brave and your bravery will inspire others to be brave.
I'm also dealing with some "scared to write" issues lately. It helps immensely knowing that other, more experienced writers are dealing with similar feelings.
And yet, you've written about [or touched on] at least 15 of those topics, and that's just the ones I KNOW of [say, within the last 3 years or so].
So, it is a mark of your own personal courage that you can first of all identify these fears; and secondly, to overcome said fears to write about them [*edit: I just read the other comments, and realize I'm pretty much echoing Teeni to this point...].
You are stronger than you realize... and every time you DO share, you impart some of that strength to your readers. We are your adoring public; there is not one of us whom you have not touched.
And that's why we keep coming back.
Wait a second now...didn't you write on almost every single one of these topics at one time or another?
I think I can related to why you'd be afraid and so I appreciate you now more that you wrote on them. But I hadn't thought about it at the time. See--that's so weird. When you see someone do something cool one tends to think the person wasn't afraid to do it!
#12 please. And I think you have groundbreaking things to say about 22. But on a personal note, not that you asked, I think you've conquered your fear of writing about #19, and nothing more needs to be said. I'm stoked to see what's next.
But what is there left to blog about? I love gender variant issues, and you have a "number" in terms of how many books you've read in the past 10 years? I'd say turn this list into your topic list - I believe we want all of this from you.
I wonder why it is I was reading your list saying, "Yah baby, do it!"
Why that same list created a swirl of pain and anxiety and confusion and joy.
Why fake French-manicured nails are so alarming (to me too). (Zombies do lurk...)
Personally, I'm fascinated and heartened by the very continuum and humanity of gender and sexuality and depression and anxiety and sobriety and your caring about issues that matter.
If I can vote I would vote for the (1) have/not have kids and (2) vegan diets. Both things I am curious about others' thoughts on.
You are making me realize there are so many things I want to write about. People stopped reading my blog though. Maybe it was for the best. I thought lack of readers would never deter my writing but it did for some odd reason.
I think you should start at the top of that list and work your way through - all interesting topics.
And now I would love to read your take on each of those items! Please do.
I wonder about #11, too. I'm a bi-identified woman in a 20-year hetero marriage, with two kids. It's complicated!
I know I've replied before, but I was too chicken to say what I wanted to say the first time, but was inspired to say after reading so many people discussing item 11.
Me too. I don't sexually identify with being gay, but sometimes, most times, I totally identify with being ambiguous. When I was a kid it was really cute to be a Tom Boy; but as I've gotten older and my interests and where I feel more comfortable still lie in the "Tom Boy" area, I wonder. I've had crushes on other girls but I've never felt the desire to kiss one or go any further than that. I adore my husband of 15 years, but again, there is just this pull towards comfort in "masculinity". I'm not making any sense. Not that I want to be a man. But a lot of times I'm not very comfortable being a woman. Does this make any sense? Now I'm rambling.
Wendi, you are absolutely making sense. Gender, sexuality, and personal style are not set by the genitals with which we are born. There are actually a number of markers for biological gender that can mark someone born with one set of genitalia as actually being more in line with the opposite biological gender, so the vast spectrum of who we are as human beings is not only culturally but scientifically indicated.
By which I mean to say that you are what you are, and it's okay. We're told that we have to exist at extremes of the spectrum to be considered normal, but that hardly seems normal to me.