Monday, June 6, 2011

The Birth of Lalia

I'm finding myself in a strange position.  It's a path I've been on for several years.  A path of self discovery.  A path it took me too long to start on.  Now at half past 45 years old, I'm finding out more and more things about myself and it's interesting, kind of exciting, sort of fun and a little scary.

I've been writing with the vague idea that I'm kind of good at it, for about 14 years.  Until I started a food blog in 2007, I mainly wrote about the soap opera All My Children, which I also have a website for.  Three blogs.  I must be nuts!  The AMC stuff was mostly a snarky recap of the weeks shows.  It was fun, but time consuming and I ended up scaling way back on doing that until I stopped completely and turned my website into a blog.  Now I'll snark it up every once in awhile but I've mostly been focusing my writing here.  And I love it.  I'm proud of it.  It's all me and mostly no holds barred.  A girl has to keep some secrets all to herself.

But it's me with a different name.  I'm me but not me.  I had to become someone else in order to be myself.  I kind of hate that.  It's hard enough just being me but  I did this because I didn't want anyone in my family mainly, to be hurt by the things I write about, or embarrassed by what I say.  It's not about caring about what others think.  Trust me, if you saw me in person you would know I don't give a shit about what people think.  You can't look like this and have that concern.  I'm not embarrassed by anything I have said here.  But I know several who would be mortified.

I continue to grow, evolve and discover things about myself.  Sometimes I do that through writing, sometimes it just happens.  For instance, I discovered about four years ago that I'm an extremely sexual being.  Is it weird to say I didn't know that before?  I guess that's not entirely true, but my desires waxed and waned.  Now it's constant.  Constant is better.  I don't tire of exploring this side of myself at all.  How did I discover it?  It's kind of crazy, but I decided to go off the birth control pill.  The minute those hormones were out of my system, my own went crazy.  And I have been enjoying the ride ever since.

It's more than that though, way more.  I'm finding out that I want things I never knew I wanted.  That even though I wasn't looking for something, it found me and I have no control over how my feelings react.  That even though I thought I was happy and content, that I now feel like I'm missing something.  There's a part of me unfinished.  But I guess that's true of everyone.  We're all a work in progress.  Maybe one day I can be all me, out in the open and let the chips fall where they may.   For now I'll just keep on keeping on and hope I keep making new discoveries about this crazy chick.

5 comments:

  1. Self discovery is truly the most exciting things on earth, at least accdg to Me. If changing your name allows for more openness, honesty and self-knowledge, then by all means! It's a bonus too that we get to read good writing, right? ;-)) Continue having fun finding more of YOU! And thank you for sharing what you are finding!

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  2. sorry for typo....'exciting thing on earth'....sorry for the 's'...grrr......

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  3. Lalia, thank you for this beautifully open post. And you know what's especially beautiful? The fact that you CAN be open precisely because you write under your "pen name/identity." =) I consider it an advantage!

    And you know, I kind of like believing that I'm "all of me" all of the time as I constantly evolve and change. =P

    P.S. I'm ecstatic that you've discovered your love of writing because you're awesome at it. Love that we're in touch, Lalia! =)

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