Filters

My posts begin in my head. Murky thoughts swirl like the hot, dense fog that precedes a planet. I watch them spin and even though I can’t say what they are, I begin to pay attention to how I feel. I look at the multicolored bowl of granola sitting on the table in front of me; I decide if I want neutered (decaf) coffee, tea or grapefruit juice; I read my mom’s handwriting on the sticker covering the Amazon box containing my replacement Kindle, all the bar codes scribbled over in marker. What do I feel? Hungry? Full? Tired? Homesick? Suddenly, words form from the mist, arranging and rearranging themselves in my head, impatiently knocking at the door to my fingers as they search for a keyboard with which to purge themselves. My thoughts begin to solidify and suddenly they’re pouring out of my fingers, spilling onto the page, splashing against the margins. Everything comes out. The flood gates open and everything inside of me comes out. I can’t help it.

But now things are different. Now I’m looking for a job again. I can’t just say everything I think, everything I feel. Suddenly I see that I need to filter myself; I can’t post anything that could put my job hunt in jeopardy. How can I assure someone that I’m ready to start working again if I turn around and write about a debilitating headache I had the day before? I have to think of these things. I hate having a filter, having to censor my mind; it doesn’t feel right when for so long this has been my personal therapy, the place where I’ve laid myself bare for the world to see. More than once, I’ve put up a post just to take it down a few hours later when I realized it might be too honest, make me too human, too vulnerable to scrutiny. And it kills me, because when I started this, all I wanted to do was be honest, human, vulnerable, real. I wanted to feel scared, happy, excited, frustrated, in pain. I was raw.

I still write it all, and I can put it in the book, but until then, I’m learning to struggle against the desires that broke the chains of my inhibitions, privacy, independence nine months ago. I felt free and wild as I wrote about my most intimate thoughts; it was wonderful. Now I’m trying my damnedest to edit myself, to say what I want to say without saying it. I don’t know what that means, but I want to. I’m trying to learn. I’m trying not to feel trapped.