Expectations are resentments under construction.
-Anne Lamott
A few weeks ago, I sent a few poems off to a friend for some feedback. I’m not sure why. In my mind, I feel like I’m at a crossroads of sorts. I don’t really need someone to tell me to keep at it, but I kinda want someone to tell me to keep at it. I do some type of writing every day – it’s usually a blog post here, or a few notes scribbled on my phone. On the good days, it’s something a little more substantial/creative like a poem or a scene. I’ve written over 600 blog posts. I have over 500 notes of varying length on my phone (though quite a few are things like passwords or codes for airbnbs – some just say dumb things like Patagonia… pantsaregoneyeah). I have a folder with over 120 poems in it, a draft folder with another 20 poems, and a documents folder with a lot of scraps of ideas and paragraphs and other meanderings. I have days when I get overwhelmed or stuck and begin to ask why bother? And maybe that’s why I sent the poems. I don’t know how it is for other people… on most days I’m fine just going about my business, but I hate when this “need” for “something more” creeps in. Tell me I’m good (or at least ok), tell me I’m pretty.
I went back to Bucks County last weekend. I hung out with a friend on Friday, flew solo on Saturday (beach during the day, live music at night), and spent time with family on Sunday. I mentioned to my friend my dilemma. Wanting, but also not wanting some type of affirmation. He said, “so… what… if this guy says you’re no good, you’re just going to stop?” It was a fair question to which I knew the answer was no, I’ll probably keep at it regardless of the feedback. I guess I’m trying to discern to what degree or depth?
There’s a slight parallel with my dating profile. Within an hour of being in the more densely populated Philly area, hits/likes to my profile jumped by over fifty and eventually over two hundred and fifty. I was flattered and felt validated. With dating, geography is my problem and if I want to pursue a relationship, it might be as easy as moving. And maybe that’s what I’m seeking with writing – though on a smaller scale. I have no such validation and no clear fix other than to keep at it, and maybe try to get published (which is one of my goals for this year).
From this morning’s google searches, I have a tab open with the question “do people who feel unappreciated, avoid praise?” The results made clear that unappreciated wasn’t the word I really wanted to use. Most of the results were about feeling unappreciated at work or in a relationship, and I was trying to pinpoint a different type of feeling unappreciated – a type that comes from not sharing or not having a network. It’s not that the people around me don’t appreciate me, it’s that for some time now, I’ve kept some of my best qualities to myself… and I feel almost on the verge of changing that (though I’m not sure how).
Mentally, I keep coming back to the Joni Mitchell quote, “you run all your best moves and tell all your best stories — and in a way, that routine is a method for falling in love with yourself over and over” and the Adrienne Rich quote in which she says love, “is a process, delicate, violent, often terrifying to both persons involved, a process of refining the truths they can tell each other. It is important to do this because it breaks down human self-delusion and isolation.” I’ve been doing a lot of work in isolation – whether it’s writing or some of the more spiritual work – and lately, I’ve been wondering, “to what end?” Am I just falling in love with myself over and over? Am I too far down the path of human self-delusion? Maybe that’s why I sent the poems and asked for feedback. Maybe I’m just tired of my own echo chamber.
I stumbled on two pieces of writing tonight that seemed related to this intersection of isolation, love, creativity, and validation. The first was something written by the poet Anna Akhmatova:
I am in the middle of it: chaos and poetry; poetry and love and again, complete chaos. Pain, disorder, occasional clarity; and at the bottom of it all: only love; poetry. Sheer enchantment, fear, humiliation. It all comes with love.
The second is from Louise Erdrich:
Life will break you. Nobody can protect you from that, and living alone won’t either, for solitude will also break you with its yearning. You have to love. You have to feel. It is the reason you are here on earth. You are here to risk your heart. You are here to be swallowed up. And when it happens that you are broken, or betrayed, or left, or hurt, or death brushes near, let yourself sit by an apple tree and listen to the apples falling all around you in heaps, wasting their sweetness. Tell yourself you tasted as many as you could.