When I first thought about starting a blog, I left it pretty open ended in terms of what content I would cover. I didn’t want to niche down too hard because the thought of pigeonholing myself into a list of “appropriate” topics felt constricting.
I want to inspire, empower, motivate, and invigorate my readers. I want to share new perspectives and write about whatever holds weight inside of me, in hopes that someone will feel validated for holding that same weight inside of them. I didn’t want any topic to be off limits because inspiration and perspective can be drawn from both a grain of sand and Mt. Everest; everything is fair game.
If you’ve been following my posts, it’s rather obvious that you won’t come here to find my “top 5 beauty hacks” or my “seasonal favorites”. That’s simply not what I write about. I support and admire anyone who puts themselves out there and goes after what they want, regardless of the content they’re pushing, but at the end of the day, I am here for a much different reason.
I’ve had people say to me, “You shouldn’t get into anything related to body image and appearance and ‘all that’. I don’t think that’s your specialty.” “And, you’re not gonna talk politics, right?” “You’re not planning on writing about anything overly controversial, are you?”
First, I will say: I appreciate that some people are looking out for me.
Second, I will say: It has taken me practically my entire life to find the courage to write in any public capacity. I used to write in the notes section of my phone and say, “One day I hope you’re brave enough to use your voice,” knowing damn well it would be years and years until I actually did.
Some of my earliest memories are of me thinking that no one around me said anything similar to what I would think on a regular basis, which signaled to me— no one thought the same things that I did.
I can’t read people’s minds, so whether or not I was right, I thought it was better to keep quiet, just to be safe. In the meantime, I learned to roll with casual conversation.
That’s when I learned to write. I realized I couldn’t just openly talk about the complex ideas in my head because no one seemed liked they cared, so I turned to paper to spill out my thoughts because if there’s one thing I’ve learned during my writing journey it’s that there is nothing paper can’t hold... people aren’t the same.
So, when people started asking if I’d render some topics “unwritable”, I replied with, “Nothing will be off limits.”
I will never tailor my posts and avoid saying something that I feel needs to be said. I don’t give a royal hoot if anyone thinks there are certain topics I shouldn’t talk about. If you’ve followed along with my posts thus far, you know I have very seldom talked about politics or religion or anything “controversial”, but if I feel the need to address something within a “controversial” topic, you best believe I will write about it.
There are plenty of people I have to *blinders on, head down* and tip toe my way around. This blog will not be a place where I censor my thoughts just so they settle nicely onto someone else’s opinion of what I can and cannot talk about. You don’t find your voice just to stay quiet about this and that. You find your voice so that you can shout from the hilltops, regardless of whose ears it falls on.
When I was thinking of names for my blog, someone suggested that it be named “That’s All She Wrote”. I couldn’t help but think:
She wrote on everything she could get her hands on. She wrote on notepads and napkins, on the backs of menus and on crumpled up pieces of paper. She wrote in the middle of the night and in the moments she should have been present. She wrote a novel, an epilogue, and an appendix. She realized that she couldn’t fit everything into just one book, so she even wrote a sequel.
She will never stop writing— not for anything and not for anyone. If it needs to be said, if it needs to be amplified, if it needs to be brought out into the light after eons of silence, she will write about it.
If there’s one thing they didn’t know, it’s that she chose to write because after years and years of silence, she learned that conversations tend to fade, but literature lasts forever.
For anyone who needs it (a poem of mine):
Make sure you stomp your foot a little harder in the dirt
create a footprint that will last through the rain
challenge authority and question their ways
do not just accept the hurt and all of the pain
stand up and fight for those who have lost their voice
yell from the tallest building as if you had no choice
Make yourself known, like the sound of gun powder
what we need in this life, is to live a little louder
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