2021: Year of Rebuilding – How it’s going

If you’ve been around here for a while, you know that every year I choose a word to live by… and for 2021 it is “Rebuilding“. Fairly early in the year, I realized that rebuilding couldn’t occur without a solid FOUNDATION… and amended the meaning of my word to include it.

Over and over again, I find myself thinking about how awkward and weird the whole thing seems… how in year’s past… I loved my words and LIVED them. Why is this year different?

This morning, it hit me!

I don’t need to rebuild and the foundation is solid.

What I NEED is to REMOVE some things that aren’t authentically me.

Let me explain.

I’m reminded of my friend Kaden who has always, always, always loved to sing. I can still hear her in my bedroom… headphones on… singing to “The Morning After” in 1972 or so. Her voice rang through the house – she had all the music in her ears. 🙂 Singing was her passion! She has spent most of her life on the periphery of her dream… UNTIL NOW. She’s living it by singing semi-professionally! There’s still time to be discovered by the big guns, Kaden!! I love that you’re living your dream!

My friend MB is an animal communicator and healer. She is a talker, teacher and mentor. She loves animals and people and while she’s written a book, her preferred modality is to talk. We got a kick out of a conversation we had several weeks ago on messenger. She sent me voice messages and I wrote back… over and over. During the pandemic, she has found new and exciting ways to talk to her followers – she has a fantastic podcast! I love that she’s living her dream!

Betsy is a soothsayer, advocate and social media guru who – even when she was deathly sick in bed – did what she does best. She reached out with words of comfort, donated her valuable time, learned new modalities. Every day, she shares beautiful quotes and memes that people have said change their lives. This is who she is!

I see it again and again… people finding their niche and running with it.

Me? I’m a writer. I’ve always been a writer.

Which brings me to the question of why I’ve even attempted Facebook Lives, YouTubes and a podcast? Good question… and here’s the answer: I thought I needed to. <<< Not good grammar but it makes good sense.

There are other things I’ve tried at the behest of others… “others” being one person or the masses.

Twitter, for example. Only my best friend likes and shares my posts there, out of 2000+ followers.

Instagram, to a certain extent. I think my page is gorgeous and so do about 7-13 others who like my posts… out of the 380-ish followers I have.

Facebook business page, for sure. May I be blunt? It’s a joke. I have 600-something followers and most stuff I put up is “liked” by my husband. That’s it. One or two posts a week get a view over here.

I checked out the analytics and yep, FB isn’t the roadmap to my blog that I’d hoped. Neither is Instagram. Nor Twitter. Or YouTube.

I mentioned on a post not long ago that Pinterest IS. I just share my blog posts there and let the platform do its thing. It’s awesome! I get TONS of traffic from there, which is wonderful!!

Over the weekend, I watched a YouTube called, “I quit Social media for 30 days” and it resonated so deeply. I have become a slave to all that social media I’ve mentioned. It’s taking time away from that thing I love most – to write.

Plus, I’ve been throwing poo (sorry, but that’s what I think of my Facebook Lives, YouTubes and Podcast) against the wall to see what sticks. Very little, it turns out.

Why?

Because I’m not a Videographer, YouTuber or a Podcaster.

I’M A WRITER.

And yes, I’m kinda angry about the whole thing. I let the cliques, the cool kids, the “others” tell me what I needed to do.

Which brings me to the ads on my site. Tomorrow, I will see what my one-month experiment brought to my wallet. My guess is a million dollars. Kidding.

I hate the ads with a passion and don’t know why I even tried… because… once again… it isn’t who I am. I’m very, very territorial and love my little corner of the net. A week-or-so ago, I saw an ad that was totally inappropriate and pretty-much decided then-and-there that the ads needed to go. You’ll be seeing a Patreon or “Buy Me a Coffee” or something like that soon.

Rebuilding was my word and foundation was the addendum. I need neither. I just need to remember who I am.

Reminds me of one of my fave Hemingway quotes:

There is nothing to writing. All you do is sit down at a typewriter and bleed.

Or computer, as it were.