This week, an acknowledgment:
Last month, I posted about this journal on my Instagram for the first time. I had been putting it off for a bunch of poor reasons, but the date was 3/23/23 and it felt right. As a result, a bunch of new folks followed this journal- so let me say THANK YOU first of all for your interest and care. Ironically, though I wrote about feeling scared then, I feel more scared now.
Being open about the things that go on inside one’s own head feels vulnerable; writing this feels vulnerable; but even worse, it feels deeply uncool. Being blasé is cool- not caring about what people think is cool- saying “fuck it” is cool.
I grew up in the Midwest, oldest of 8, bowlcut hairstyle, whole nine yards. Played piano in a church with less than 20 attendees…
Not cool.
In my teens, I realized the person I could be was limited only by imagination. And the type of person I wanted to be? Someone who was cool.
Fast forward a few years: I’m alive in Los Angeles, the second-best city in the world. I’m paying my bills with money made from photos. I have an amazing spouse, a cute cat, a well-stocked bookcase and backbar, wonderful friends.
Even still, sometimes I still feel like that kid who is 13 years old, wearing a thrifted Aeropostale hoodie from Plato’s Closet, whose best friends are his little brother and everyone he meets inside the pages of a library book.
Admitting genuine care, desire, or earnest hope is not “cool.” In my teens it would have been anathema. Cool and Earnest feel like two opposite ends of a spectrum.
But my earnest hope is that these writings will be helpful, encouraging, and in some way beneficial to the reader. To that end, I’m pressing send and closing this mental loop. Send me a message if it resonated with you, but we’ll be back next week with more of what you actually signed up for.
Thanks for reading. Talk soon-