Part III of Detoxing From 31 Day Better Blogger Challenge: Life After Rehab

I grew up in a middle class, suburban home and experienced luxuries growing up that have leaked into my adult life. Like not carrying any student loan debt. Many of my peers did not have such luxuries, and for these blessings, this casual avoidance of major life hurdles, I am grateful. Oh, so very grateful.

My struggles have always seemed to revolve around where I fit among the landscape of. . . well. . . life. Granted, this is more of a "luxury problem" than anything, like enduring a rank 'bout of intestinal cramping after consuming a five star meal. Those who are simply struggling to survive are not typically in the head space to wallow over questions like, Who Am I?! No. Those kind of things are for people like me (and quite possibly you, too). Although there is a chance that if I hadn't grown up with overbearing parents who had high expectations of me, I might be sitting in a motel room right now shooting heroin and picking at open sores.

Just saying.

Strange Little Girl. Cute, but Strange.

Growing up I always had a bizarre fear of life. I mean people. In Kindergarten I spent what must have been an hour banging a bottle of liquid glue against a craft project because the pin my teacher had poked into the rubber head hadn't gone all the way through and no glue would come out. I spent the period stewing in terror as tears welled in my eyes and a lump sat in my throat. When the bell rang for recess, I finally mustered the courage to tell her that my glue bottle didn't work and I hadn't completed my project. She assured me that I needed to tell her when things like that happened. But for some unknown reason, that's just the way I was. I was strange. I was sensitive and intuitive-- a thinker-- which seems to be more of a hindrance in childhood than anything. According to my five year old self, my peers were obnoxious and evil, strange adults were exploitative and evil, and all I really wanted to do was go home and hang out with my Mom. And pet kitties. All. day. long.

An Awkward Fit.

My shyness and irrational fears followed me through most of my youth. When I hit puberty I began to revolt against my peer group as I developed some of my own critical perspectives. At this point staying true to myself meant rebelling against certain institutions and I chose non-conformity. But at the same time, I always yearned to belong, to find a place to fit and rest my head and subsequently thrive. This has been and probably always will be a life long struggle for me. Naturally, this struggle has transcended into my career life.

The Pull Between Passion and Practicality.

I've written about it before, the pull between developing my passions as a viable career and following an area that is more concrete and practical. I chose a middle ground when I earned my degree. Unfortunately, the working world is a sphere that demands expertise, not roundness. And despite thinking that I was taking a relatively safe route, I ended up in a not-so desirable position for employability.

Since I was seventeen years old, I have been on the look-out for more practical education that could prepare me for a tangible, hands on career that pays enough so I could sustain myself. I just never found a place where I thought my personality and skills would fit. And I still haven`t.

Successful people often say that if something isn't working for you, you need to try something different. That is the point I reached in my attempt to secure a professional job. Whether it was unreasonably low pay, blatant rejection, or interviewers who took one look at my youthful appearance and talked to me like I was an eighteen year old girl who had done Jello shots before the interview, it just wasn`t working for me. It got old. Really old. And severely fucked with my self esteem.

Cold Hearted Bitch. I mean The Working Sphere.

Recently my mom saw an ad for a career opportunity to work as a career counselor. "If only you had a little more education. . . ," she preached, "just a little more education."

"Like what?" I asked.

"Like a specialized course in career counseling."

The only course I know of that specializes in career counseling is an online course through Athabasca University and the classes are all wishy-washy theoretical ones, similar to the education I already have.

Like most career oriented jobs, this one asks for three to five years of experience that I don't have. Years ago I asked my own career counselor what I might do to try to get experience to work my way into such a position. She suggested trying a local organization that does career placement for disabled people.  It was a low pay position, and all around a little bit shitty, which was apparent by it's high turn over rate. I had also liaised with some of these employees when I hired disabled people while working my glorified HR/ recruiting job, and I know that many of them were disgruntled and stressed out. But whatever. They were constantly advertising online, so I gave it a shot. I sent them two resumes. Then I talked to them at a job fair, which, ironically, I was working at, again, for my recruiting job, and the women representing the organization wouldn't even look me in the face-- just told me to drop off a resume.

Career Counseling is one of those areas where my mom boasts, "but you'd be so good at it!" I know from my short lived career as a recruiter that it is something I'd be potentially good at-- I get along with people from all walks of life, have a counselor-esque style to my personality, and I've endured my own struggles with finding my place in the working world. Plus it's in line with my degree, but like employers care about that. I've learned the hard way that it doesn't really matter what position, I, as a person, may thrive in.  It's all about credentials, and years of experience, and, as my boyfriend often says, "who your father knows and who your mother blows." Even though the higher ups at my recruiting job thought I was the shit and did what they could to help me progress, no opportunities came up and eventually I went back to my night job so I could resume working full hours and earning a reasonable pay cheque. All in all, I've never come across one of those open door opportunities where I could apply myself and prove my capabilities. It just hasn't happened for me.

I look at a position like career counseling and I can't help but assume that I was/ would be competing with people who have HR backgrounds or educational backgrounds and are looking for a lighter alternative to years of working high responsibility, stress enducing jobs.  Or that employers will take one look at my youthful appearance, like the last horrible interview I had, and assume that I am unfit to play the part. Or am I wrong?

Am I taking my realistic approach and going too far with it? Or am I just being practical and saving myself the heartache of of following another murky path that is so heavily based on politics and luck? Are the compromises of pursuing something like this worth the opaque possibilities it may entail? Or am I second guessing myself and lacking perseverance? Have I become too bitter?

When it comes to a nine to five career, this is my constant, inner battle. I just don't know. And the costs seem high. Literally. All in all, digging into this sphere makes me feel like shit.

I've abandoned seeking work in the professional sphere due to these frustrations. But when my current job gets so mind numbingly stupid or politically smothering, like the two painful years I endured with a toxic Geny Y'er from hell who busied himself by playing mind games and doing everything he could to drive me crazy so I'd lose my shit and strangle him and get fired, my mind returns to ugh, maybe I should go back to school. Or when I start doubting the realism of developing my passions due to new hurdles, like the ones that have come to my attention via the 31 Day Better Blogger Challenge, I start freaking out and regressing back to the would of, should of, could of mind fuck of the nine to five, working world.

Trying to Find a Place to Thrive.

The thing that scared me the most about the 31 Day Better Blogger Challenge is realizing, as I already stated in Part I, that creating a successful blog isn't really about the art of writing, but is more about selling a commodity. This is why the most successful bloggers around are those who teach others how to make money at blogging. Or people who offer consulting services. Or offer advice about a commodious niche. All these areas are like a self serving machine. They feed themselves. And advertisers like that.

But what if you're doing it for the sake of mere expression, or art? Sure, some bloggers have made money at selling their personalities through their writing, but the days of the Heather Armstrongs seems to be over and done with and the experts don't seem to hide that fact. If you think you're going to achieve financial success simply selling your words on a website with nothing commodible attached to them, well, good luck, but it probably isn't going to happen.

Starving artists have been long criticized for their inability to market themselves and actually make money at what they do, and some of the hugely successful bloggers regularly discuss this. But none of those bloggers are artists, or true writers. They're business gurus who sell a product, usually revolved around self-help marketing techniques. They preach the importance of "meeting a consumer need" when establishing a blog with the intention of making money.  But the thing with art is that it doesn't really fill a need. Sure, it might be esthetically pleasing, or make us feel good, or make us think outside of the box, but we don't need it.

From a marketing perspective, the most obvious service I could offer with my writing is freelancing. So, what sets my writing apart from others?

According to some of the comments I've received, I write candidly and administer verbal body slams. And obviously I write from a bit of a sociological perspective. I also like to throw humor into the mix. I also like the word "douche".

Sounds like I have something there. Except not really. Because most of those characteristics are the antithesis of marketable. Clients typically want freelancers to help them sell something. Of course, I could always sell my writing as entertainment that may adhere to a certain style and reader demographic. It's plausible. But again, narrow. Like the little garage attached to my condo that resembles a straight man's prostate-exam-phobic anus.

I have so much to figure out.

And I haven't even mentioned the additionally complex angle of potentially bringing a hell spawn into the world, which, if all goes well, Bear and I would like to do before our genitals wrinkle and start spending afternoons at the Legion sharing stories about their failing functions.

I know in my heart that I need to tell my neurotic mind to be quiet. Like in my high school math class when the goth girl who was upgrading told the Paris Hilton of the class to shut up or she would sodomize her with a rake. I need to commit myself to perseverance and approach these hurdles like a mind ninja and sink into faith and absorb it until it flows through my blood. I've realize that when it comes to following my passions, I do need your help (you meaning my friends, acquaintances, and anyone who reads my blog, for that matter), so I graciously ask you for any input you can offer me, whether it be the topics I write about that you most enjoy, what you enjoy the least, what you would like to see more of, what you would like to see less of, or any other feedback regarding marketing, niche, or possible angles that I may not have considered.

If there is one thing I've learned in my adult life, it is that I am not special. I am not talking about my personality, or worth, or MIND BLOWING cat whispering skills. What I mean is that I am not special in the sense that I am not safe from pain, or numbing disappointments, or failure, or the uncertainties of the universe.  I do not blindly deserve anything just because. And maybe if I had come out of my debtless, university years and immediately fell into a satisfying, status snazzy entry level position equip with open doors and a comfortable reassurance that I was special, I would now be a total douche bag with only a fraction of the life experiences I have under my belt. In other words, my adult life, thus far, has been extremely humbling, and at the end of the day, it's the awkward challenges that I continue to navigate that have not only made me a more interesting, dynamic person, but a better one, too.

Part II of Detoxing From 31 Day Better Blogger Challenge: Overcoming the Urge to Douche My Vagina

As I discussed in my last post, I spent the last month participating in the 31 Day Better Blogger Challenge that was conducted by the Sits Girls community, which I explain in further detail here.

I started out with a bang as I rubbed fallopian tubes with other blogging women and felt inspired by the communal spirit.

But it didn't take long for my new found inspiration to turn sour as I became lost among a plethora of never ending recipes, crafts, organizational tips, nuclear family romanticism, and an overwhelming use of the word "mommy". That's right, I was water logged in a sea of mommy bloggers.

Before I go further into my mommy blog angst, I feel that I should clarify the following points for the purpose of self defense:

1. Some of my favorite blogs are parenting blogs, or at least blogs written by people who are parents and regularly write about their children and child rearing in general.

2. I know that child rearing is extremely important, not only in regards to the development of children, but also in regards to the overall health of a society.

3. I perceive parenting as an extremely challenging, yet rewarding commitment and I empathize with the compromises that parents make.

4. I have full respect for stay at home parents and see great value in what they do and perceive them as equally as purposeful as people who work in the public sphere. When/if I have children, I intend to stay at home with them when they're young if at all possible.

5. I am no hater of stereotypically feminine hobbies. I watch HGTV. I talk to cats in a voice that makes me sound like I am a midget high on Ecstasy. Sometimes I even like to talk about my feelings and then cry afterward and blame it on my hormones. Although I will admit that I do not like cleaning. Did you know that a bar of soap that sits unused on the edge of your bath tub can go moldy? It can. Fascinating, really.

That being said. . .

This challenge opened my eyes to a wide demographic of mommy bloggers, and I got to the point where every time I was designated a blog to visit and comment on, I would hope to God it wouldn't be another mommy blog. And it always would be. At two and a half weeks into the challenge, I found myself wanting to wrap my lips around the barrel of a gun in hopes that the misery would end.

I do understand that blogging has given stay-at-home parents, particularly moms, an outlet to express themselves, socialize, and develop an easily accessible community. Totally surpasses Tupperware parties and is way healthier than abusing Lithium. And as a result, mommy blogging has given stay-at-home moms a sense of purpose that extends beyond the private sphere, which can be perceived as progressive and empowering. But for me the blogosphere's saturation of mommy bloggers quickly became stifling as I struggled to find my footing within this demographic.

My breaking point came when I stumbled across a number of particularly aggravating blog posts. One was written by a stay at home Wiccan mother of six children.

Her blog post was an attack on those who perceive staying at home with children as being a luxury (mother's of course, not father's, because according to another mommy blogger, although women would be better suited than men to run the country (US), it wouldn't work because no one would be around to raise the kids to become good people). Her argument was that staying at home with children is the furthest thing from a luxury. BECAUSE HER FAMILY IS POOR AND LIVES ON A TIGHT BUDGET. HOW IS THAT LUXURIOUS?! IT WAS A COMPROMISE SHE MADE FOR THE BETTERMENT OF HER KIDS, OKAY? SHE ACTUALLY CARES ABOUT HER KIDS.

Cough. Not that she'd make enough money to surpass the cost of child care for six kids, anyway. Cough.

I, of course, wanted to respond with two, passionate and meaningful words:

Fuck off.

But I maintained an aura of class and refrained. Not for the sake of my own mother, because my own mother is probably thinking the same thing. And my mother's mother would have actually responded with "fuck off" if she had ever used that kind of crude language. No, I refrained because some stay-at-home moms write letters and form campaigns against popular musical artists for wrecking their children's minds. Because they enforce things like ineffectual gun control regulations that cost Canadian people millions of dollars. Because they scare me.

And then there was the woman who believes that gay marriage should be segregated from the church and religion altogether, because Jesus Christ our Savior only acknowledges heterosexual marriage. In fact, those who want to marry outside of the church aren't really even getting married, as true marriage is defined by religious devotion, so these people are free to officially unite, but should be using a different term altogether, like maybe love buddies? Special friends? It would be a simple solution to the gay marriage debate in the States.

And then there was the comment to that post from another mommy blogger who believes that divorce should be outlawed. In case you missed that, THAT DIVORCE SHOULD BE OUTLAWED. 

THAT DIVORCE SHOULD BE OUTLAWED.

Because that, of course, would remedy things like domestic abuse and spousal murder. And of course children being raised in households with parents who hate each other but cannot escape each other and are perpetually filled with rage and lose all will to live is a great environment for children to be raised. And suddenly I found myself gripping my computer monitor. Violently. And overwhelmed with the urge to douche my vagina, again and again (and again) for no other reason but to cleanse myself of the shame I felt in that particular moment for being a female blogger.

Instead, I closed the window and walked away from my computer. And I officially became emotionally detached from the Sits Girls 31 Day Better Blogger Challenge. So while I still finished the e-book on my own time, I stopped posting on the forum and participating in the community.

I dropped out.

I deeply debated writing this. Discussing topics related to female domestication are things I have learned to steer away from-- the "don't go there" topics. Because I haven't endured labour, and because I don't want to  march myself to my own stake burning. I am all for people sharing their views, but when conflicting view points seem to be perceived as anti-social and the only responses to these posts, which I will now refer to as "bubble posts", seeing as how many of these women seem to live in bubbles, are complacent ones, and agreeable ones, and fully supportive ones that offer no further discussion or deeper dialogue, I start to feel like my soul is being smothered by a pillow. That is adorned in a home-made, floral pillow case.

So I soon came to the realization that for many women participating in this challenge, blogging was more about celebrating motherhood as a bourgeoisie, middle class idealism than anything else--  mass masturbating to a mid-century celebration of a time when a woman's identity was revolved around cooking, cleaning, child rearing, and other stereotypically feminine interests like fashion, trinkets, keeping house, consumerism, and ignoring the negative social attributes historically bred from that one-dimensional role.

And while these women pow-wowed in celebration (and defense) of their choice to stay at home with their children, I was disturbed at how they had unknowingly created a limited paradigm (that I believe they originally intended to avoid) by reinforcing narrow notions of what it means to assume the role of stay-at-home mom, like arguing that they are not trying to adhere to a house wife ideal by weighing their worth on things like house keeping, then boasting about how awesome they are at house keeping in a 1000 word blog post. And then posting a ten point list post about house keeping strategies the day after. And then 65 other women leave comments about how the post was so insightful. Ironically, while celebrating their own life choices, which, more often than not, seemed to be made possible by the financial stability of the men in their lives, they seemed to overlook the fact that their boisterous pow-wowing was alienating women who had made other choices, or women who have no choices at all.

According to many of the mommy blogs I visited (and don't get me wrong, maybe I just had really bad luck at which mommy blogs I was designated to hit), poverty doesn't exist beyond budgeting within a one income household. Women who have to work to keep themselves and their babies fed? Apparently they don't exist. Single mothers? What are those? Domestic abuse? What's that? Undependable, unsupportive husbands? Huh? The fact that so many of these women seemed ignorant to what's going on outside of their own rosey suburbanism demonstrated that they do experience luxuries that many women don't. And that's great, except for the fact that many of them are oblivious to their blessings. And that makes me want to hold a Tupperware burning.

And I would if Tupperware wasn't so practical.

And expensive.

And if lighting it on fire wouldn't release toxins into the atmosphere.

Obviously I don't fit in within this niche.

In fact, I don't fit in with a lot of women. During this challenge I started having my recurring nightmares about my best friends from high school, and I have finally realized why I have those dreams.

I have women issues.

It's taken years to make this correlation, but now I know that my nightmares about my old best friends aren't actually about my old best friends. They're about my feelings of alienation from some of the women is my life. Now. Currently. Like Mommy Bloggers. And in a way, that's a relief, because I was starting to wonder if I had marinated into some sort of woman-baby who was unable to get over her ex-girl friends. No. I just have women issues. Obviously my old best friends symbolize female rejection to my subconscious.  And ostracization.  And because I don't feel like I fit in with a lot of women, and then endure this fucked up, inner tug-of-war between frustration, guilt, and a repressed wish that I could just belong, I end up feeling really shitty. And dream about torture. I mean my last year of high school.

I've been at this fork in the road before, where one path leads me to fakin' it and fitting in, and one path leads me to staying true to myself even if it means being lonely sometimes, or at a disadvantage at promoting my blog in the women's corner of the blogosphere. Inevitably I always choose to stay true to myself because deep down I know that throwing myself in with a bunch of women who make me feel frustrated will inevitably just make me feel more frustrated. So, I made the decision to follow the churning in my gut, and accept the fact some women may be offended that I am challenging what I perceive as the revival of the cult of domesticity, and may not want to read my blog or be my friend.

I write critical blog posts like this in honor of the people in my own life whose voices tend to get lost among the buzz of the bandwagon: my mother, who also shares critical views about cookie-cutter, mommy culture; for my home girl Laura, a separated mother of three young kids who works night shift with me and who I have seen so exhausted that her eyes don't properly align;  for my best friend who is a lively and successful career woman who craves life partnership and worries that she will never find it; for my boyfriend who lives in camp three weeks out of the month and stresses that if he becomes a father he will be a stranger to his child; and for myself and my own clumsy struggle to get where I so desperately want to go. I salute all the people out there who have tripped and fallen and forged ahead on bloodied knees, and despite uncomfortable disappointments, still laugh, joke, share, speak honestly, and find pleasure in the simple things, and even though we may bitch, and moan, and lose our shit and cry sometimes, we still appreciate our blessings, although diverse and sometimes unequal, and we realize that there are so many people out there who have is so, so, so much worse.

In my next post titled, Part III: Life After Rehab, I will discuss some of my own blessings and struggles, and how they relate to my experience participating in this challenge. I will also go into further detail about trying to find my place within the blogosphere, or if finding a place to fit is even necessary, and the difficult road ahead in my attempt to transform my aspirations into something more than just a hobby.

In the meantime, I will overcome the urge to douche my vagina.

Detoxing From 31DBB Challenge: Part I

So I didn't complete Feel Good Week 2010. I have been too busy experiencing my 100th relapse into quarter-life crisis.

And all I can muster the energy to do is eat gummy sours and watch HGTV.

I blame the Sits Girls 31 Day Better Blogger Challenge, which wrapped up last week and left me with an uncomfortable case of creative constipation.

And a temporary sense of doom.

The challenge was based on a really positive premise: complete the 31 Day Better Blogger work book within a community of women with a focus on networking and supporting each other's blogs. It sounded really great, and for many women it was really great. Unfortunately the sign-up page should have noted to proceed with caution if you are not a stay-at-home mommy. Or Tipper Gore.

Here is some back story.

I am a frustrated writer-- a true, rebellious creative type, with a job-market unfriendly arts degree and numerous years under my belt working the graveyard shift at my glorified retail warehouse job.  In retrospect, my education has made me a better writer, and my job is perfect for writing, and for those things I am grateful. Nonetheless, I don't exactly feel like I have reached my potential.

A few years back, after half a decade of failed attempts to score a professional career, I also abandoned the notion of getting more practical education, mostly because I couldn't clearly decipher an area I would excel in that would require low-committal upgrading and would be a positive, financial alternative to my current work situation. So I took it as a sign and decided that I would pursue my passion, which is something that has always played a dominant role in my life, anyway, and that passion is writing.

At this point I had already done casual freelance work for local newspapers, and I had no idealisms regarding a legit writing career. Writing about shit you don't care about just for the sake of writing sucks geriatric elephant balls. And you can't even write things like "geriatric elephant balls". WHAT'S THE POINT? I knew I would be happier putting energy into my own writing, even if it were only as a hobby, instead of writing piece after piece of mindless dribble for a wage that is on par with a monthly welfare cheque. Bottomline, I discovered that my desire to write is based on expressing myself through written word, not simply the act of writing itself.

Since I had already been blogging for years, I made the decision to treat blogging with more seriousness and to learn whatever I could in hopes that maybe someday I could use my blog as an entrepreneurial starting point for making money through my writing. The Sits Girls 31 Day Better Blogger Challenge was a huge learning experience for me, and strangely, the work book took a back seat to the lessons I learned from participating within the community. Unfortunately, the lessons I learned sucked.

When it comes to the blogosphere, networking is everything. And networking is largely dependent on belonging to a niche. The ability to network within a niche is also key to scoring advertisers and actually making money.

What's your niche?

Good question.

It became apparent to me that the majority of the women in this challenge had blogs based on pretty narrow, stereotypically feminine niches: motherhood, parenting, cooking, organization, crafting, home decor, fitness, nutrition, fertility, infertility, house wifery, etc., and the fuel behind their momentum were each other. Due to this challenge, my Twitter account has become Female Domestication Cyber-Hell, and I have about 250 people I need to delete before I can free my account of tweets marketed towards 1950s housewives and resume reading communications that are actually relevant to me. Those of us whose blogs did not adhere to specific, stereotypically feminine topics were left floundering on the forum posting threads like, "Help! I can't figure out what niche I belong to!"

It has been hard to accept the now obvious reality that successful blogging isn't based on attributes like quality, originality, or even interesting writing. Just like the real world, selling a blog has more to do with whoring a commodity or commodifiable lifestyle, or ideally to do both in conjunction. However, what has truly disturbed me is what is commodifiable among these women in the blogosphere, which is predominantly house wifery.

Unfortunately, I've been putting a lot of weight on this blogging stuff. And I've gone from feeling like I was ascending up a very steep hill in a wheelchair to battling Mount Everest without legs. While riding a skate board. And at this point, I don't have a plan B.

Over the next week I will be discussing my detox from the 31 Day Better Blogger Challenge in more detail with Part II: Overcoming the Urge to Douche My Vagina, and Part III: Life After Rehab.