Writing and the Fear of a Past Self

I have been lost for words the past few days, escaping this writing, my blog of my life in Paris, for other writing. I am still trying to develop a relationship with this blog, which is new and uncomfortable for me. I do not fall into this writing easily like my other work. 

This is because I know someone else will read my work. I am more censored than I am with myself and I have found this writing, still personal, but less intimately so, less authentic and honest than the work I have done in the past. Yet, I cannot be any more daring right now than I am. I am afraid to share more of myself. This relationship, I expect, will change as I write more and develop a natural rhythm with blogging. I’m not anticipating the changes, but leaving them open, without imagination, to take their own course. 

I have marveled at fiction writers and have wished many times to be one myself — and have tried too — but I am not in love with my fiction, not for a lack of skill, which could be developed, but because I like to write about my experiences, places and people, who have influenced me. 

I like reading psychology, philosophy and history, biographies and memoirs. There are, of course, many beautiful works of fiction — some of the very best works are fiction — but I have always had this pull away from it as a writer. I cannot deny my calling for writing nonfiction. There is no running away, but to accept the fact that I must stay true to myself and to dance this dance I have with my own fear. 

Unlike in so many areas of my life, in writing, I have models for how I would like to be and the writers I love have a tremendously high tolerance for judgment and criticism. I have always had a low tolerance and, maybe this is why I admire them, because they possess what I do not. I suppose these are human traits admired by most, but few have an impulse to write their thoughts and to share them with a larger audience, an audience that cannot be tamed or controlled, but that will judge and interpret and, perhaps misinterpret, what is being said and how it is being said. 

The more I write, the more I become both confident and self-conscious of my writing. I often find it difficult to read over past work because my skill develops and my voice changes. Past voices sound naive to me, inauthentic to who I am now. My past lack of skills I fault myself less for. I recognize the changes are a consequence of a greater understanding for what makes good writing and practicing, writing and writing. 

I am not comfortable with this aspect of being a writer, that what you have said in the past can be read in the future. There is no taking back, no rejecting or denying, your past work. Your writing simply was who you were at a time in your life. I am still trying to face this fear. 

There is a trend here, a fear I have of permanence, which is present in many facets of my life. It is why I have been afraid of this blog, the simple need to commit to writing weekly for my readers and myself, but moreso, it is my fear of being defined by my past. This has happened to me in my personal life, where the image people have had of me is not the same as who I have become. It is hard when you have changed and the change is not recognized or understood by those close to you. 

I am both afraid and in love with the transient self, never certain of anything, open to everything.