Writing this newsletter every week bares my soul even, and especially, when I don’t mean to. (This TikTok was right.) When I’m in a swirl of stress and I write about springtime recipes, for a completely random example, I feel like the accidental subtext is “who even knows what they’re doing, like, ever?”
Some essays, like ‘Double agent’ and ‘On my own’, are soul-baring after I’ve had the chance to process the ideas enough to articulate them. And then when those ideas resonate, it’s completely buoying and validating. But sometimes I reveal things I don’t mean to and that’s just not my M.O. I’m a writer, yes, but for most of my career I’ve focused on other stuff—food, travel, fashion, copy, things. Not myself.
What’s more, I’m a practiced calculator of what I put “out there”. Pick a device (humor, ‘big’ words, a parenthetical) and I’ll use it to veil or distract, to let you in only as much as I intend to. But this here newsletter, and the practice of writing it no matter what else is going on, is causing a shift. It has meant presenting my mess before I’ve been able to frame it into a lesson or a tidy anecdote.
I am uncomfortable. And I think it’s a good thing. I’ve always been jealous of the people who can just show up in all their glorious mess. Not a curated mess. Not a perfectly unkempt bun, cute flushed cheeks, and a bullshit refrain of “oh my god I look awful”. Simply showing up… How on earth do you do that!? Presenting something untamed, even hidden in between the lines of a newsletter that you read and think “hmm, did she phone this one in?”, feels self-indulgent and a burden on you. Plus, what about when I’m no longer a mess? (Someday…) Are you going to remember the disarray? Embarrassing.
But when someone owns whatever state they’re well and truly in? We all appreciate it. I, for one, feel more comfortable being myself as a result; it’s like a permission slip. Much like how Marie Kondo recently admitted to giving up on a perfectly neat and tidy home and we all went, “oh thank god”. I think a lot of us still need that encouragement to let our hair down, to just be.
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