When I first started this blog in 2009, I was 29. I knew I eventually wanted to write professionally and publish a book. I also had lot of emotional baggage I needed to write my way through. This blog served me well and provided a place for me to write about breakups I’d kinda-sorta-not-quite-healed-from, share bizarro dating stories, talk about sex and (hopefully) make you guys laugh as I journeyed into the world of comically strange products. I wrote openly about my mental health and experiences with heartbreak. I rode the wave of balls-to-the-wall personal blogging, until, well, things changed.
The internet landscape changed (with Instagram taking the place of deeply personal blogging), but I changed too. I always tell people that I chose the blog name Skinny Dip because it’s good metaphor for sharing your life on line. When I started blogging, I wanted to strip away outer layers of myself; shed my figurative skin if you will, in hopes that I would eventually arrive at the most “me” version of myself. Ten years ago, I felt so full of angst and feelings that I couldn’t envision a time in the future when I wouldn’t have things to get off my chest in a very public way. But then I arrived at that point.
The stuff I needed to let go of got let go of. Sex blogging stopped feeling fun and I started to save my time, energy and juicy stories for my book. But then, even book writing became challenging.
The problem with shedding your skin is that eventually you reach a point where you hit actual flesh and bone. It’s raw. It’s tender. It’s uncomfortable. Self-preservation kicks in and you instinctually tell yourself to pull back.
This is basically the point I reached sometime in 2018. After nearly ten years of personal blogging and several years of working on a book project (and watching it shift & transform) I hit a wall. I was suffering from a vulnerability hangover that I had no cure for. So, I switched my focus to travel writing and went on a bazillion work trips. Okay, it was more like seventeen — nearly half of which were to Mexico — but still, it was a lot. I needed a break and travelling provided that.
While I’m super grateful to have travelled so much over the past two years and have no plan to abandon travel writing (or blogging) any time soon, eventually my “break” started to feel like I was running away. In my gut I know its time to slow down and get to work.
The idea of “time” is something that’s been on my mind obsessively for the past few months. How should I spend my time? Is it better to go with the flow? Am I better served by sitting still and doing the work? These are questions that have been on my mind obsessively since I turned 39 in September.
Looking ahead at 40 is such a weird feeling. On one hand, I’m much happier and in a better place mentally than I was at 29. I’ve also accomplished some major goals and had some amazing opportunities. On the other hand, there’s still so much that feels…in progress. Things that (society tells me) I should have checked off by now just aren’t. While my friends are closing on houses and renting out a gender reveal smoke cannon to honour their third kid (yes, that’s a thing), I’m here — still single, still living at the same spot, still working on a book that isn’t quite finished yet. I’m happy and healthy but all the external stuff that I just assumed I would have taken care of by now — the fat bank account, the home, the committed relationship with plenty of hot sex –are still works in progress.
It’s so easy to let my thoughts spiral into an anxiety-driven maelstrom start thinking of the what-ifs. What if things never work out? What if I fail? I’m neutral on children, but what if I never even get the chance to veto a gender reveal cannon because I end up ALONE, BROKE AND LIVING IN MY MOM’S BASEMENT FOREVER. While there’s literally no evidence that any of the above will happen, the FEAR takes me to some really dark places (literally. Hello, Mom’s basement?)
(I have a friend/colleague who’s in a similar situation and I was joking with her that maybe because we’ve spent our thirties sorting out our internal selves & living our lives on our own terms (with plenty of freedom), that we’ve preempted a 40-something mid-life crisis where we go out and randomly buy a speed boat to fill some kind of deep emotional void. Here’s to hoping!)
I know my writing has the greatest impact — both for myself and others — when I allow myself to be vulnerable. But guys, I’m kind of fucking scared to dig into that tender flesh. Every day I have moments where I think of just escaping (saying yes to a press trip, running off to visit a friend, etc) just so that I don’t have to sit down and feel the things I need to feel so I can write the things I know I have to write.
So, while I work my way through to the other side of this vulnerability hangover, I’m reclaiming this space for my writing. While I can’t promise a return to the no-holds-barred blogging days of yore (in fact, it likely won’t look anything like 2009 or even 2013), I do plan writing things that feel honest, true and (ahhh) vulnerable, while I work through all these feels.
Maybe people will read. Maybe they won’t. But if you’re interested in following this journey, you know exactly where to find me.
