I keep forgetting that I don’t owe anyone an explanation. None of us do really. I’m not sure why I feel I must keep people informed of my plans and goals and what I’m doing. Is it to help keep me accountable? Or is it because I think people are so fascinated by the life and times of Yours Truly (Ha!!) that they are on the edge of their seats wondering what my next move will be?- Where’s her blog? Wasn’t she going to do one every week? Why has she changed the frequency of her social media posts? Why so little on Facebook and so much on Instagram? Why isn’t she doing Twitter…or is she? What’s she working on now and when will it be ready? Why is she doing poetry? Is poetry her thing now? What about other books? What does she do for money? What does she do all day?
I have a plan. I just don’t want to talk about it with anyone. It’s exhausting explaining what’s in my head and booorrrrrinnnng. I talk about it with my 
husband and sometimes with whichever of my adult kids are flying through the house from time to time so they can put their two cents in and so they think I’m making an effort to keep them in “my loop”. But beyond that I’m getting more comfortable retiring from the song and dance about my latest and greatest plans.
Maybe I got in the habit of letting people know my plans because I needed to justify how I spent my time. Once I was no longer in the public sphere and showing my face as an employee with an actual job description and responsibilities I was feeling a little at loose ends. I no longer had to be accountable to anyone. I had no one to say “Good job, thanks for looking after this”. I had no one to give me a deadline on a project. When there’s no one to report to and, on most days, nothing tangible except an idea inching along to greater clarity, or some scribbled notes, or edited work, or even an entire day spent learning through reading, it is sometimes hard to feel like I’m doing anything. Perhaps my need to explain was related to me feeling like what I am doing is SOMETHING and is intentional and does matter. I believe this is the challenge of all who feel compelled to dive into the writing life or any other type of creative life. Sigh….
Or maybe I want to explain because if people are noticing (Oh how vain, I am) I’m doing things differently or experimenting with a different style I want to assure them that it’s still me, that I’m still here, that nothing’s wrong, that I’m still chugging along on plan even though things might look a little different from the outside. I want to explain so people won’t come to their own conclusions. Why do I even care what people think? Well, that’s the big question right there I guess. I am still wrestling with that one. I’ve made huge strides. Going public with a totally out of character book of poetry certainly helped.
But why am I like this? It has always been important to me that people understand. Not just understand ME, but just understand, more generally, what’s going on. That feeling of being out of your element, out of your depth, in the dark, clueless…is so uncomfortable to me, that I don’t want other people to feel that way. That is what motivated me to volunteer as a reading buddy type mum at the school when the kids were little. To give that little extra attention to someone to help them “get it”. To see the light go on. To make classroom time not feel like you’ve been thrown into another planet and have no idea what’s going on. That feeling of not knowing what’s going on affects everything. Confidence and self-esteem plummet. Then before you know it you are even further behind. You’re ashamed to admit what you don’t know because you are so far gone that it’s embarrassing. So then you fall further and further behind. It can be debilitating. It is so limiting and so harmful. And that is the feeling I don’t want anyone to have. Ever.
I know this seems unrelated to the topic of me over-explaining myself and my plans…but I don’t think it is. I think my need to explain stems from my need to make sure people are comfortable. That people don’t have to pretend that they know what’s going on when they don’t. I want people to feel informed and empowered. I think that’s where this comes from. I also think this explains my writing style. Of course I can be more profound and deep and use bigger, fancier words. But I don’t want to. I want people to be comfortable. I don’t want people to be scratching their heads wondering what I mean.
Personally, I shut down if I don’t know what’s going on. Small talk is painful for me because I cannot cope with bits and pieces of light banter when I don’t understand the full picture. If someone is telling me something I want to listen and know the whole story and ask questions and have a proper conversation. I don’t see the point in smiling and nodding and saying “great great, sounds wonderful” when I don’t have a clue what they are talking about. It seems shallow and insincere.
But, maybe not everyone feels the way I do. And, more to the point, maybe it’s not my problem. Maybe it doesn’t matter if people know what I’m doing or why. Maybe I can be confident that those who want to know will ask. Maybe I’m not actually the centre of the universe. Maybe other people’s comfort level with what they know and don’t know is their problem and not mine. Hmmmm….
Here’s an example of my need to explain. I post a lot of posts on Instagram. Anywhere from 2 to 4 a day. I have all kinds of very strategic reasons for what I post, when I post, and why I post. Reasons having to do with target audiences, engagement, social media goals, future writing plans, my writing development, and what audience I am trying to line up ahead of time. If you follow less than a hundred people who don’t post very often and you follow me, your feed will be inundated with my posts. It would be annoying and ridiculous. I would not in the least be offended if you unfollowed me. I totally get it. I would unfollow me for God’s sake. But I worry you are worried I would be disappointed or hurt to be unfollowed by you. Well guess what? I don’t have the time or inclination to actually figure out who is following me and who is not – so go ahead. I assume that if you want to see my stuff you’ll make the trip over to Instagram or buy my book or whatever. Plus, if you know me personally and follow my personal account then you can be sure if anything earth shattering is happening in my writing world I’ll probably toot my horn on there. See? I just want to explain. I just want you to know what I know and know what I think so you don’t have to worry.
So you see – I explained something that was begging to be explained in a blog about not explaining myself. Oh, how clever I am. Let’s not even talk about that, shall we? Obviously I have a long way to go.
I just want people to be happy and comfortable and informed. And I want people to know what’s going on. And I don’t want to let anyone down.
Maybe I should stop explaining now…