So I have been working quite a bit on the book lately (read: incessantly), and with every chapter that I write I get more and more excited to share my story with all of you. As someone who writes a blog for a living, you could say I am kind of used to pouring my heart out and having a community of awesome readers to connect with immediately thereafter.
A book isn’t so much like that. Writing a book is so much more introspective, and when I go on tangents and write unnecessarily long asides about some random story that happened in college that somehow feels entirely relevant to the chapter at hand, there is no AUDIENCE to bring me back to my senses and think, “Oh, wait, what am I doing?”
So I tend to write and write and write until the next thing I know 11 hours have passed by and I have enough material on the page to fill the beginning stages of a TBB Encyclopedia. (Now wouldn’t that be fun? Next project…)
Anyway, other than gaining loads of inspiration from Lena Dunham’s and Sophia Amoruso’s sensational memoirs, which both kick ASS by the way and I highly recommend that you read, I have also been noticing a certain something in the pattern of my writing that keeps sticking out to me.
My book is a memoir, so every chapter is tied in with a grouping of memories from a certain part of my life. And each set of memories draws back to the people that inhabited them with me, and the connections and relationships that we have or had.
And since I am writing so intently about a lot of people that are still in my life, I have been feeling incredibly nostalgic, emotional, grateful and attached to them. Let’s just say it wouldn’t be out of the ordinary for me to text one of my close friends on a Tuesday afternoon and say, “I just want you to know how much I love you,” “You = my soul sister,” “Why are you the most incredible human being on earth?” and “How the eff have you put up with me this long?”
^ Every single one of those texts has actually been sent in the last week, and there are many more to come while I finish up the book over the next month and a half. (And is it weird that I am absurdly excited to write the “Acknowledgements” section of the memoir?!)
But quickly before I go and before you stop reading and before we all pop back into our lives and away from our computer screens, I want to tell you something that’s been on my mind… (because I haven’t been able to while I’ve been in book land!!!)
Sometimes I really freaking like to be alone. I was pretty much never alone for more than ten minutes at a time for at least four years straight in college, and while I enjoyed it at the time it got very old. It got crippling. I needed some room to breathe, to explore what I loved and to get back in touch with myself.
When I moved to NYC I fell in love with the novelty of doing things alone. Going to restaurants alone, going on long walks alone, spending the entire day alone *gasp!!!* writing or hanging or doing yoga on my living room floor.
And I think the reason I have become so okay with being alone is because I know, in my heart of hearts, that I am never actually alone. The people I am close to are, in big ways, extensions of my very being. My mom, my dad, my siblings and nieces and nephew and lifelong best friends, they are all a part of me, and because I always feel their energy in my heart I never actually feel alone.
The only times I have ever felt lonely are when I am not getting along with one of my peeps, or when maybe I’ve had a falling out or argument with someone close to me (which is rare). And, this is beyond the point, but I find it worth mentioning that after spending some time alone all I want to do is be surrounded by the people I love and cherish most.
They are extensions of my being! What can I say?!
People are everything to me.
Do you feel the same way? I’m so curious. I know people who despise being alone for even thirty seconds, and I know people who swear they could go weeks with no human contact. I think I am somewhere in the middle… Where do you fall?
PS… You need these books in your life:
