Wearing my reality...

"You're the only one who inhabits your skin. You're entitled to complete ownership of your lived experience. No one else will ever know you the way you know you, and they don't get a say in how you wear your reality." (Plain English, Rachel/Rey Spangler)

There's a lot to unpack in the phrase, "how you wear your reality." This website and the book I'm about to publish (Smiling at Grief) are my first attempts to express how I'm wearing my reality these days.

One choice I made was to continue not engaging in social media. It's true, I will miss opportunities to reach further and sometimes I miss events or news because I'm not on Facebook, which I've found replaces newspapers in small towns. I did allow for people to share my blog on social media if they wish to do so, though I won't know about it.

There's also no way to buy anything on this site - there are links to Amazon, as the books I've written are published via KDP. It's possible that could change, but for now I like the simplicity.

Going back to the quote, I remember being told, "I know you better than you know yourself." What an impossible, condescending statement to make. There's no way to refute that claim, because the other person would turn any argument around by saying it proved their point, and clearly you didn't know yourself. For many years I lived with that statement hanging over my head, an invisible sword of Damocles, leaving me afraid to wear my reality. I suppose I could say I used to wear my reality like a t-shirt - under my shirt, which was under my sweater, which was under my jacket, so that maybe a sliver of my reality was visible to others. The rest was well hidden.

Not so easy to hide now, when I wrote the book coming out this week, published it myself and did all the KDP work, including cover/design choices. Same with this website - my words (except for quotes), my design choices my work in every aspect of it. Full ownership - the good, the bad, the ugly - any mistakes are mine. And even harder to write, I am also responsible if you like it or are moved by it - book or website.

There was another choice I made on this blog - not to include comments. I'm not looking to start discussions or debates; I simply want to continue this exploration of how I wear my reality and see where it takes me. You are invited to share the ride through the blog, the website, and my work. 

Thanks for joining me,
Doc

My kindergarten picture