(327) Inside a Struggle Post
I had an idea for a post several days ago.
“How To Tell Your Friend is High Maintenance”
As with every.single.idea.I’ve.ever.had, I was ecstatic about it, and promptly wrote the whole post out in my head right then, in the middle of whatever it was I was doing.
And then completely forgot all of everything.
*Tangential: no one come at me and say ‘oh but kitchen if you just record your ideas and posts as you write them in your head then problem solved ok’ because I fucking know that and have done it twice and it’s been delightful both times ok. I fucking know. Welcome to my world of leggings, zero showers, and rampant, senseless, fuckery at every juncture.*
Anyways, in my early daily days, a lost post would send me straight to writer’s block and a meltdown. And, at some point in the gauntlet of my last dailies, I will dig through and dredge up all those fail posts so y’all can see what happens when you promise to write no matter what.
Lately, though, I’ve become a little more stubborn about letting go of a failed blog topic. Particularly if I felt a rush when I first thought of it. Conversations That Happened Despite Everyone’s Best Interests was a struggle post — one that I was on fire to write, and then not because rigor mortiful, and finally, had to nurse back to words for several days before I could do anything with it. Silver Linings was another struggle post. So, instead of just giving up on the idea, showing up with nothing, and splatting out whatever angsty drunken guilt-vomit I’ve saved up over the last day of futility (which is of course tons of fun it its own right shhh moving on), I decided to glare at the idea until I remembered how to make it mine again.
There have been a few times where I couldn’t save the topic, even after glaring at it for several days. (This is a long time. My glare is unpleasant. Ask any of my students.) When I can’t save a topic, there’s always a specific why. But even those specific whys have a theme: something about that topic wasn’t going to write well for me because it would involve me needing to be inauthentic at some point during the piece.
The last unsaved topic was supposed to be a sarcastic retort to every dribbleshit article out there that even vaguely gripes about the high maintenance friend in terms that do not involve abusing boundaries and/or personal space. It was supposed to be a giant fuck you to the concept of the high maintenance friend. The first thing on the list was something along the lines of:
1. They are really eager to spend time with you. UGH gross
And I tried, y’all. I tried to write this piece because in my heart, it was so fucking funny. But everything I typed fell flat, disappointing before the sentence was even finished. I realized I kept falling because this topic is still too sore for a straight up humor post for me. The label, and the inherent misunderstanding involved in the label, still ring like chimes made of wounds I’d thought healed long ago, and I can’t write it like it’s funny to misunderstand intimacy and care in the way that the label allows. The topic isn’t a humor post; it’s an arrival post. And it took failing to write it to get me to acknowledge that I have lines that I need to honor before I can allow myself the luxury of being flippant.
