My writing habit has been stuck recently, but maybe articulating why I haven’t been writing as much will unlock something and help get me back to a rhythm. That’s the experiment, anyways.

One, I’ve started to allow myself to admit and accept how much I want to write a book someday. I’ve never said it out loud too much because sometimes I feel like that means it’s an automatic “no” and will never end up happening. But I want to. I’ve wanted to be an author since I was 11. I have some topics I enjoy talking about, but no concrete theme and I have zero clue how or where to begin. The abstract “just start” is too open-ended… like, is there a syllabus or something?

But now that I have the desire to write a book in mind, I’m overthinking every possible thought I could write about. “Should this go on the internet or do I save this for a potential book chapter?” Remember, I still have zero theme I want to create a book around, so this thinking is completely arbitrary.

Second, navigating the deconstruction space has been pretty weird lately. It’s been one dose of harm after another (all surrounding white folks) and it’s made it kinda sticky trying to navigate it all. On one hand, I love the deconstruction space so much . . . which is why I go to bat for it so often. But at the same time, I recognize that 60% of my following right now is only there because of things I’ve said in the past regarding harm (particularly about Joshua Tree . . . iykyk). I’m so grateful many have chosen to stick around, but I’ve also had to step back and honestly analyze if I’m “building a platform” off of what most would consider internet drama vs. showing up honestly and authentically for and as myself.

It’s very easy to justify speaking up about harm – it’s harm and needs to be directly addressed as such. And at the same time, I never want to set myself up as a paragon for moral aptitude on the internet. That was quite the self-indulgent sentence there, yes. Idk, how else would you say it? If your “thing” unintentionally becomes calling out harm, people are going to unintentionally and perhaps unconsciously anticipate pure behavior from you. (Not moralizing that, it’s just an observation. I think it’s pretty normal to hope that people aren’t jerks.) And that isn’t even an issue for me, really . . . I guess I just want to make sure I’m doing all I can to stay self-aware and reign it in a bit when I start to reflexively discuss harmful behavior without tending to my own growth first. And I don’t think I’m doing that, or at least, I’m not trying to . . . I don’t know. Like I said, the deconstruction space has just been weird lately and I’m trying to figure out where I fit in.

Third, I was not expecting for all this Roe V. Wade business to be so upsetting to me. I just haven’t seen the adoption and foster care systems be weaponized so much to the point that folks are willing to deny millions of people their bodily autonomy in exchange for a made-up political sticking point.

Somewhat tying into that, the amount of white women who suddenly found their voice now that their turf is potentially under siege is not surprising at all and also highkey offensive. I’m doing all I can to ignore their takes because . . . none of it is new. It’s also a bit bold to be upset about this issue when the majority of white women have repeatedly voted Republican/conservative for the past 18 presidential election cycles. It’s a hole they dug for themselves, but expect everyone else to rescue them from.

The amount of misinformation surrounding adoption, for both conservatives and progressives, is just . . . truly astounding. What makes it worse is, adoptees aren’t believed. We’re vilified that second we venture out of the pre-existing “I’m grateful” script that the adoption industry relies on. Once adoptees disrupt the “love makes a family” narrative, they’re mocked, labeled “bitter” (which, if you were ripped from your first mother when you were a baby and placed into a strange home, wouldn’t you have feelings about that too?), and made to feel less-than because their stories don’t match up with an agenda. No matter what side you’re coming from, we never asked to be pawns in a culture war.

So that’s been fun, watching adoption be thrown around to win an argument instead of just looking at the families caught in the middle of that. Nbd. (And yes, I did make that GIF myself.)

And lastly, I haven’t been writing because I’ve been reading a bunch, both for pleasure and research. If I want to write a book, I want to ingest as much writing as possible. Which is both great, because I’m learning a bunch, but it’s also made me feel like hot garbage because some authors’ absolutely beautiful and mesmerizing handle on vocabulary and sentence structure makes me feel like I’m drawing stick figures next to Bruegel.

Yay, I wrote something!