oh hai.
15 days later...
i was talking to anders last night about how i'd decided to start up my LJ again, and about all the reasons why. here are a few.
i write a lot these days, or rather, i should be writing a lot these days. i am in the throes of dissertation research, and you know, dissertations are kind of long. so i write. not least of all, here: http://erininbeirut.wordpress.com. but dissertations are also rather anxiety-producing. over the last few years, in the midst of diss research and lots of changes in my personal life, i've noticed a really annoying trait of mine: i spiral. when i start feeling nervous or insecure or anxious about one thing (ex: diss), that feeling picks up speed and whirls about and touches down in all other parts of my life (ex: love life), some of which are not terribly related to the issue causing the feeling.
and sometime in the not too distant past, i realized a couple of other things: one - i love writing, but it's become this big scary chore for me. and two - writing used to really anchor me to reality, or at least allow me to explore my feelings, to externalize the spiral, which was consequently rendered not-so-scary-after-all.
i also remembered that livejournal used to be my place to drop that anchor. when i was feeling any range of big emotions, writing here helped me to suss things out a bit more productively, and also to reach out to friends in a way that, let's face it, facebook just doesn't let you do. because while livejournal always was a performance of a kind, at least a lot of that performance had to do with actual thoughts rather than bright photos and witty quips. don't get me wrong: i'm the guiltiest of the guilty when it comes to indulging the social media vending machine that is facebook. but just now, i'm in the mood to sit down to a real journaling meal. know what i mean?
and i'm not just in the mood. i need this. because at the end of the day, i write my diss, i write in my other blog, but all that writing brings up so many feelings that i cannot necessarily deal with in the texts themselves. and besides, my life is more than my diss, and more than being erininbeirut.
so i'm back. and i was so, so glad to see that so many of you are still here too.
<3
e.
i was talking to anders last night about how i'd decided to start up my LJ again, and about all the reasons why. here are a few.
i write a lot these days, or rather, i should be writing a lot these days. i am in the throes of dissertation research, and you know, dissertations are kind of long. so i write. not least of all, here: http://erininbeirut.wordpress.com. but dissertations are also rather anxiety-producing. over the last few years, in the midst of diss research and lots of changes in my personal life, i've noticed a really annoying trait of mine: i spiral. when i start feeling nervous or insecure or anxious about one thing (ex: diss), that feeling picks up speed and whirls about and touches down in all other parts of my life (ex: love life), some of which are not terribly related to the issue causing the feeling.
and sometime in the not too distant past, i realized a couple of other things: one - i love writing, but it's become this big scary chore for me. and two - writing used to really anchor me to reality, or at least allow me to explore my feelings, to externalize the spiral, which was consequently rendered not-so-scary-after-all.
i also remembered that livejournal used to be my place to drop that anchor. when i was feeling any range of big emotions, writing here helped me to suss things out a bit more productively, and also to reach out to friends in a way that, let's face it, facebook just doesn't let you do. because while livejournal always was a performance of a kind, at least a lot of that performance had to do with actual thoughts rather than bright photos and witty quips. don't get me wrong: i'm the guiltiest of the guilty when it comes to indulging the social media vending machine that is facebook. but just now, i'm in the mood to sit down to a real journaling meal. know what i mean?
and i'm not just in the mood. i need this. because at the end of the day, i write my diss, i write in my other blog, but all that writing brings up so many feelings that i cannot necessarily deal with in the texts themselves. and besides, my life is more than my diss, and more than being erininbeirut.
so i'm back. and i was so, so glad to see that so many of you are still here too.
<3
e.