From there to here
I started out writing anonymously, with the idea that I would probably write while locked up in the bathroom. It was the only room in which I could shut the door and have some semblance of privacy (most of the time), although that concept didn't last very long, thank goodness, and I am happy that I didn't name the blog the first thing that came to mind, The Bathroom Diaries.
In preparation for a February blogiversary post, I’ve been going through the old stuff, including a file of posts I deleted early on because of their extremely personal, current-at-the-time nature. In the very early days, I wrote candidly about my life. I could do this because nobody was reading and nobody knew who I was anyway. It’s interesting – and sometimes disconcerting – to see the roots of some of my current themes in my early writing, though I have also come a very long way.
For example, here’s something from December 27, 2007: Most of today was spent trying to fight the feeling of being in a mind-numbing life. It's a great psych-out, talking my brain out of its funk, trying to stay in the moment. Lots of internal pep talks. I am no longer totally mired in brain funk, but still struggle with boredom and my self-imposed exile. Four-plus years is way too long to feel that way, but at least things are changing.
Here’s what I wrote on January 16, 2008 on the idea behind writing to survive: Trust me, this is writing to survive. If I don't get it out of my mind via my fingers, I think I would do something really destructive. There is an element of self-censorship to what I write, but that's good. It gives it form and reason.
I’m not sure what I think about this now, as someone who has both been very open on the blog (perhaps too open, especially when it comes to writing about other people) and has also constructed metaphorical frameworks in order to control my emotions and threatening thoughts, posts that attempt to extinguish or at the very least contain my internal fires. Self-censorship is not the right word to describe how I form my version of reality here. Clearly I get something by being open about my feelings, open in this very public context as much as I able to be open, but maybe the rationale for that is an inability to be open elsewhere. And sometimes I obscure my intent with metaphor and walls of words, all written with a compulsion to get them out there, as if I was sending secret messages to an ideal reader.
That post goes on to say: As I was playing with H and C today (H=husband, C=the boy aka child), I reminded myself of how short these days are. C won't be little forever. He won't always want to be with me. He won't remember wanting to rub and kiss my belly. His sweet (albeit repetitive) play will change and he will move on and be an independent creature. He deserves a sense of his inherent worth, not a vague feeling of being inconvenient (oh, I hope I'm not passing that feeling on to him).
There is no danger of the boy forgetting the soothing properties of my belly – he still rubs and kisses it when he needs to be comforted. His play has gotten less repetitive, of course, and I still try to be in the moment with him as much as possible, to remind myself that his childhood is fleeting. And now that I have more personal space – it didn’t exist back then, between the staying at home and the kid who didn’t want to go anywhere and the extended breastfeeding and co-sleeping – I no longer worry about giving him the idea that he is inconvenient.
Over time, larger themes have emerged – guilt, forgiveness, desire, – my voice has become stronger, and my writing has shifted. Certain topics take on the quality of a wave, with the buildup, the crest and trough, sometimes building up again months later (for example, the stillbirth of my first son was a huge topic in late 2008 – early 2009, with intermittent, much less overwrought mentions after that, not that I've dropped it completely). I’m also having fun identifying my favorite posts which, surprisingly, are mainly fictional. For example, Berkeley type still makes me laugh and The Bottom of the Sea, part of the NaNoWriMo novel I wrote in 2009, shows what I can do when I really apply myself. In the process of identifying, of charting the progress of my mind and where I've gotten stuck, as well as seeing how I took something I wanted to do – write – and made it happen, I am better able to evaluate what works and what I must change before another four years slip into memory.
One thing that I can both agree and disagree with now, this sign-off from January 9, 2008: Too self-aware. Damn. And without any prospects. The prospects are out there, but I might need to tone down the self-awareness a bit. Too much can paralyze.
Image: The boy, spring 2008.
Finishing this up as the boy lies sick in the couch across the room, wondering if this post will be of interest to anyone but me. Well, at least I can show that change is possible, and that even without much external change there can be internal shifts. I credit writing and my determination to keep on doing it.
Origin story
The summer of 2007, right before I started the blog, was a terrible time. I missed DC, the ability to get around easily, my friends, the city, the houses, my old neighborhood with its grocery stores and restaurants and easy access to Rock Creek Park. I missed my mother, even though she was somewhat unavailable at the time. My husband was adjusting to a very different work environment, was struggling with identity questions of his own. I had all this bottled up sadness and anger, a story I had held onto for over twenty years. I had a lot to say, but no way to express it.
That's when I started writing, during my son's naps, writing in a notebook out on the deck, writing in the bathroom after I brushed my teeth, writing out what I used to think of as my defining story (maybe it still is, though I don't want to be defined by it). Then came a marital crisis followed by the creation of the blog, the pursuit of readership and other blogs to read, people to connect with. I started writing more, almost every day, and slowly my life changed (as it must: two-year-olds don't last forever, thank god). Through the Writing Salon, I found a writers' group. My son ended up at a wonderful play-based preschool, then started elementary school. The defining story changed, lost some of its significance. Other kinds of stories surfaced, mostly from my childhood and early adulthood, the days of river swimming and fights over dinner tables, of alcohol and tears.
It helps to look back, to see how far I have come, as a writer, as a person, how despite my internal struggles, I am capable of change. We're all capable of change, but sometimes it comes slowly, when we don't even know the wheels are turning.
Thank you for reading, for being witnesses.
Related posts: The end of anonymity, In the beginning . . .
Top image: The boy at almost-three, so cute, so all-encompassing.
Image: Me, sophomore year of high school, at the beginning of the troubles.
Edited on 1/7/11.
Making it (slightly less) funky
I was tentative at first, hid myself behind veils and a false name. Over time, the veils slipped away, I walked out from behind the curtain, showed my face to the light, revealed my name and purpose. And being seen is ok. It's good. I want people to know me for who I am, for who I was, to keep the secrets from defining me.
Because the secrets don't define me. Even better, after seeing the light of day, after being transformed into stories, they have become almost irrelevant, forming and transforming experiences, important ones, but not the core of who I am.
Visitors to this Web page, however, may have a different impression. In the interest of shaping writing to survive to better reflect reality and also to bring a more professional feel to the page, I have made a few changes. They're subtle — a new tag line, slightly different selections in Excerpts from Life, a more complete look to the food writing page, which I've renamed Kitchen Detour. Most of the old stuff is still here, stories of angst, secrets revealed, but you have to dig a little deeper to find it.
Next post: Crumbling beneath the Formstone. Or something along those lines, with a departure from post titles derived from pop music.
(Image: Mirror, Little House by Jennifer Trinkle, 1986.)
The end of anonymity
In the beginning, there was Anonmomous.
Then it was simply Jennifer. But there were slip-ups. The PublicLiterature.Org stories with my full name. The e-mails I sent to others from my personal gmail account. The few blogging awards that went to Jennifer Fullname instead of to just Jennifer.
My father found the blog. I accidentally sent an e-mail to my ex-husband from the writing to survive account and I'm pretty sure he's been here. I have a sneaking suspicion that my brother-in-law has visited at least once. A friend from elementary school found me here. For a while the first hit on a Google search of my name (yeah, I google my own name. I'm not the only one, right?) was the blog, for reasons that are somewhat mysterious. Until today, the two weren't directly connected.
It's one thing to write to complete strangers. It's quite another to realize that people who may be a part of my story are reading. Or that casual friends might come upon this and find out more than they ever wanted to know about me. But as I kept on leaving the door ajar, I realized that I want to be open, needed it. What's there to hide? Just me.
So.
Here I am.
Jennifer Trinkle.
All other names have been changed to protect the innocent. In most cases.