An Introduction to My New Blog

I know it’s been a while since I last posted anything publicly.

As hard as it is to believe, I’ve been writing a lot in my head - strong feelings and opinions fester while I’m at work, multi-tasking by getting my job done and writing entire essays about why I felt like my true self was suppressed while I was going about my writing journey. All those years of not going after what I wanted.

This is just an introductory blog post, explaining my new direction. I’m still trying to process everything that’s happened in this past year, so I thank you for being patient with me.

I felt restrained.

I felt like my desires weren’t valid.

I felt like I was considered “less than” for my authentic choices.

I felt like I wasn’t allowed to pursue the life I desired because then others would pity me for not chasing the best of the best of everything. I hated that feeling of being pitied just because I naturally wanted a simple life with no BS status rules dictated by the egos of others.

Like what’s wrong with finding solace in solitude and hating constant overstimulation and bombardment of all the rules of what I’m supposed to do?

What’s wrong with deliberately choosing to simplify everything and question everything that weighs me down and silences my inner voice?

I felt like I had to be used as a social prop to make others look good. I felt like I had to be what others wanted to me to be because my natural self didn’t have what it took to make something great. Well guess what? The fake me failed miserably.

I have a crystal-clear vision in my head. And I know exactly what will destroy it. So that’s why I had to take drastic measures to protect myself and to guard what I find most valuable.

I was made to feel that anything that brought joy and wonder to my life was not worth pursuing because “it wasn’t elite or sophisticated enough” or that “it wouldn’t make me rich or famous on the Internet.”

But that’s a lot to unpack. I will save that for a later post.

Lately, I’ve been craving solitude and the simple life. Getting back to my roots and finding acceptance in being “little old me.” I am so capable of embracing wonder and escaping to the land of childhood dreams that I cried when I reread The Voyage of the Dawn Treader this month and remembered why I wanted to write in the first place. Reepicheep going into Aslan’s Country in the end is a beautiful but sorrowful parallel to the way I placed my stuffed mouse Reepicheep into my mother’s casket during her funeral.

If social rules get in the way of that pure sense of wonder, and if somebody else’s status rules dictate that you must kill your inner self to gain prestige, then they are absolute garbage.

The ego has no place in my life, and I intend for it to remain that way. All I want is to feel energized by what actually lifts me up and question everything that keeps me blocked and feel like I’m not allowed to do anything I was born to do.

For months, I hinted at how Substack was draining me. I felt like I was constantly being surveilled and scolded. I wasn’t allowed to write about what brought me joy because that wouldn’t earn me prestige and it wouldn’t even build a career in a practical way. Too many loud voices talking over my inner voice. I needed to set hard boundaries like never before out of self-preservation.

Too much unsolicited advice was killing the writer I wanted to be.

So that’s why I decided to shut down my Substack account permanently. I am not ruling out Substack for the rest of my life, but if I decide to return later, it will be out of joy and not from a place of pressure.

The truth is, there is a lot that goes on internally with writing than people see. And I really disagree with the fact that your path has to look like someone else’s in order for it to be valid. I need to set hard boundaries on what I will no longer tolerate because I’ve been suppressed by people who think they know better than me and that I’m always wrong. Yet my intuition was screaming for all that noise to stop so it could hear itself better.

This year has been a year of sudden endings and the most difficult but necessary beginnings. 

I can’t promise that I’d be present online as much as I did before.

But this I can promise - that I won’t let anybody steal my joy or shame me for my childlike sense of wonder. I promise that I will heal my inner child and tap into the wellspring within my soul - because I am overflowing with so many story, poetry, and blog post ideas right now. 

As you can see, I have four sections on this blog and made minor edits to my website. They are pretty self-explanatory and I organized the menu the way I did so that you can find what you are looking for based on category. I’m especially excited to be sharing with you a children’s story about a very extraordinary character named Lily who has become a larger-than-life force and the most potent realization of who I aspire to be.

I’m finally beginning to get the hang of writing in my own voice again. Without the algorithm. Without the external pressure. Without the status games. Without the feeling of being constantly watched and disapproved of. Without the excessive shaming. Without the pit of dread that I get from engaging in the world as the suppressed version of myself.

And I know deep in my bones that the best is yet to come.

With love,

Christine