Friday
Aug032012
BlogHer, Voices Of The Year, and How My Switch Was Flipped
Friday, August 3, 2012
Four years ago, I stood in front of a group of BlogHer '08 attendees in a ballroom in San Francisco and took part in the conference's first Community Keynote before it became better known as Voices Of The Year. I faced the largest group of people I had ever faced, I think there were 800 of them, and I read them a blog entry I wrote just a year before that expressed the deep fear I had had about my cancer and subsequent hysterectomy.
When I stood up on that stage and read my piece, a cliched switch was metaphorically flipped. Something inside me turned over. Something inside me said I have people now and I am meant to be here and I have more to do and say in this community than anywhere else I have ever been.
And then I went home and had a nervous breakdown.
I went to the doctor and held my head to stop myself from shaking it no, no, no at the floor and the walls and my own sad life as I asked him to fill in a form for medical leave from my abusive job, because I had found out that I had that Something Big inside me that I'd always suspected was there but had not had the opportunity to realize until I'd faced that sea of people in San Francisco.
I wish there were simple words to explain how reading about my cancer up on that stage in that ballroom in California made me lose my mind and eventually quit my job, quit smoking, quit drinking, somehow find my personal, spiritual, and professional footing, and then later find myself here working full time from home as a writer and designer who is invited to speak to bloggers about what they do. There aren't simple words, though. I had a switch that needed just the right confluence of events to flip, and BlogHer's Voices Of The Year baby somehow flipped it and, in turn, my entire life.
I stood on that stage swelled with the feeling of I-have-arrivedness, which is not to say that I felt famous, although I kind of did a little bit, but which is to say that I felt that I really had my feet planted in a place that I was meant to be and was doing what I was meant to do for the time in my whole 35 years.
Later today at 4:45 p.m., the fifth BlogHer Voices Of The Year will begin, and I will be firmly planted in that audience cheering each nervous blogger on as they read their respective pieces. I will get to watch them claim their physical place in what is normally only a virtual space, and I will get to remember what that meant for my life in 2008 and what this might mean for some of them in smaller and larger ways.
This is my church, an expression of my greater drive, in a way, when I watch a new group of bloggers step to the mic one by one to clear their throats and begin out loud, in their own words.
Thank you, Elisa Camahort, Lisa Stone, Jory Des Jardins, and BlogHer staff past and present for bringing all of us, and me, here again. You gave a once fledgling, now thriving, community a space to claim, and we do.
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PS. I am an honoree in this year's Voices Of The Year for my piece We Can Become Known.
When I stood up on that stage and read my piece, a cliched switch was metaphorically flipped. Something inside me turned over. Something inside me said I have people now and I am meant to be here and I have more to do and say in this community than anywhere else I have ever been.
And then I went home and had a nervous breakdown.
I went to the doctor and held my head to stop myself from shaking it no, no, no at the floor and the walls and my own sad life as I asked him to fill in a form for medical leave from my abusive job, because I had found out that I had that Something Big inside me that I'd always suspected was there but had not had the opportunity to realize until I'd faced that sea of people in San Francisco.
I wish there were simple words to explain how reading about my cancer up on that stage in that ballroom in California made me lose my mind and eventually quit my job, quit smoking, quit drinking, somehow find my personal, spiritual, and professional footing, and then later find myself here working full time from home as a writer and designer who is invited to speak to bloggers about what they do. There aren't simple words, though. I had a switch that needed just the right confluence of events to flip, and BlogHer's Voices Of The Year baby somehow flipped it and, in turn, my entire life.
I stood on that stage swelled with the feeling of I-have-arrivedness, which is not to say that I felt famous, although I kind of did a little bit, but which is to say that I felt that I really had my feet planted in a place that I was meant to be and was doing what I was meant to do for the time in my whole 35 years.
Later today at 4:45 p.m., the fifth BlogHer Voices Of The Year will begin, and I will be firmly planted in that audience cheering each nervous blogger on as they read their respective pieces. I will get to watch them claim their physical place in what is normally only a virtual space, and I will get to remember what that meant for my life in 2008 and what this might mean for some of them in smaller and larger ways.
This is my church, an expression of my greater drive, in a way, when I watch a new group of bloggers step to the mic one by one to clear their throats and begin out loud, in their own words.
Thank you, Elisa Camahort, Lisa Stone, Jory Des Jardins, and BlogHer staff past and present for bringing all of us, and me, here again. You gave a once fledgling, now thriving, community a space to claim, and we do.
----------------------------
PS. I am an honoree in this year's Voices Of The Year for my piece We Can Become Known.
categorized in writing and blogging and tagged in BlogHer, BlogHer 08, BlogHer 12, VOTY, Voices of the Year, blogging
writing and blogging and tagged in BlogHer, BlogHer 08, BlogHer 12, VOTY, Voices of the Year, blogging 
Reader Comments (20)
You are my people, Schmutzie.
1) I am so glad your switch WAS flipped, because the world needs your big voice
2) I am also so glad I was there when it happened
3) When I think of my people, you are right there at the front, waving
4) You're beautiful just the way you are and you keep getting MORE beautiful, like a rose unfolding - there's never a time when it isn't lovely, but it keeps getting more amazing
5) I, too, love numbered lists
I love you, woman. And your words.
Our experiences were almost exactly the same, as you know. Reading it here makes it more clear. I am weeping in a session.
(I just didn't acknowledge the breakdown until three years later.)
I'll always be so grateful I have shared part of this wild path with you. I love you.
I loved We Can Become Known. I'm so glad it's being recognized! Your voice is beautiful.
I hope you have a fabulous time at BlogHer.
I was there, in the back of the room, hearing your story. That evening was one of my favorite parts of BlogHer.
Blessings to you,
Mary, momma to many
You rocked, that day. Which is not such a surprise... since you rock, EVERY day.
When you decided to shrug off the cloak of anonymity you once carefully maintained, I hoped for the best for you. To say that you picked up that ball, ran with it, ran rings around the opposition, spiked it in the end zone at Mosaic and then knitted it a woolly hat doesn't even come close.
Yours is a very special voice. Thank you for letting us hear it!
-- Catherine
x
I've been looking for inspiration, so I've been hanging around here lately. Loved your TedX talk and am mentioning it in today's post.
I'm wondering, after your switch was flipped, were you filled with an endless supply of courage? Or did it flag occasionally? And if it did flag, how did you strengthen it back up again? Actually, I'm hearing some possible answers play themselves back to me from your TedX talk. But, if you have time to elaborate, I'll be listening.
I thought I'd be OK with my decision to not attend this year. I'm not OK with it.
If it weren't for BlogHer, I wouldn't know your blog (or you). And you're a pretty amazing person to know.
What a fantastic piece!
The nervous breakdown = an essential "re-boot", a new operating system, and several other computer metaphors.
I'm so happy for you.
Oh man. I'm totally in tears. But, you know. good ones. "We Can Become Known" is the first thing I read of yours and I've been a huge fan ever since. xoxo
An excerpt from "We Can Become Known" is enlarged and prominently displayed on the wall of my office. I read it EVERY DAY. xoxo
I know just what you mean.
Normally I just goof on people because it's what I do best, but I have nothing. You're simply one of the nicest people on the planet. So's your husband.
Could not be more thrilled to have hung out a tiny bit with you, and can't wait to do roundtable crap with you at AimingLow's Non-Con.
D.J.
our church. i wouldn't have come up with that by myself, but i do rather like the analogy.
happy to have seen you this weekend.
I have been lurking here for a few months and knew this was a safe, albeit virtual, place for me to learn about blogging. I'm new to the blogging world and have yet to find my 'voice'. Hesitant, self-concious and doubtful, I dither about the margins of the bloggesphere. However, this post and, especially, the previous 'We Can Become Known' post have, as you say, "flipped my switch".
I've copied the 'We Can Become Known' post and will read it every morning before I go online to remind myself that my voice will be heard.
Thank you, thank you, thank you xxxx
I know exactly what you mean. My moment was last year's Listen To Your Mother.
And now I can never go back to that other life: I have TOO much to do in this one.
You're a HUGE part of the reason I feel I have to keep on going, and do all I can do encourage and spotlight and help people BELIEVE that they too have a place here.
Thank you, Schmutzie, for so many things you'll never know, but just believe me: thank you.
I love this. It really warms my soul to read about these wonderful switches getting flipped...lives being transformed. So glad it happened for you :)
Yes, exactly all this.
I spent years hating my voice, being much more comfortable on the other side of the camera, in the backstage side of things.
I was so glad I got to read at VOTY this year, even though for me it wasn't a defining moment, as yours was for you (and I am so glad that it sparked you into transforming your life into what it now is).
(Maybe it was because the piece came from another time in my relationship with my mother, and she is now even so diminished from then, so I was inside much sadness as I read?)
In any case, it was still a wonderful empowering thing to do, and I took the stage full aware of how many amazing women had preceded me, you among them, and felt you all with me as I read. Probably none moreso than Susan Niebur, who I had heard read on this very exact NYC stage 2 years ago, and whose death I mourn and generosity & fortitude inspire me daily.
Also, how had I never read this "We Can Become Known" post before? It must be because I really needed to read it for the first time NOW. You are an inspiration. Thank you.
I've only been blogging for six months and this was my first conference, but this weekend I had the same feeling that I have found my place and my people. I am so glad to have had the chance to meet and chat with you and your husband. Thanks for writing "We Can Become Known". It serves as an inspiration to a fledgling blogger such as myself.