The Cult of Fitting In

 

Hello, Invisible Audience,

 

I recently finished writing a book that I worked on for nearly 15 years. (!!) I am so very excited about this! I have to admit that at times I tried very hard to forget about this book altogether; tried to forget my idea of being a writer completely because I didn’t seem to be able to do it well. I’m not even talking about the writing itself—I’m talking about the “discipline” of writing. I don’t do that kind of writing regularly. I have gone through bouts of writing fiction every day and years of not writing any at all. Throughout the years I wasn’t writing, I would think, “Clearly you aren’t serious about writing if you can’t do it on a regular basis. You don’t deserve to write if you aren’t willing to dedicate yourself to the process.”

 

Although that’s one way of looking at it, there’s another way: I kept coming back to it because it meant so much to me I could not let it go, despite all the doubts and internalized messaging that told me I was not worthy of the craft because I wasn’t working very hard at it. After all, you wouldn’t hire a contractor who only worked when he felt like it, so why would you trust a writer who hardly ever wrote?

 

Do you see the fallacy, Invisible Audience? Do you see the lie? The fallacy is that if you cannot give 110 percent to something you shouldn’t do it. The lie is that you must go all in or walk away. And the biggest lie of all is that my process is worthy of judgement by anyone else’s measure.

 

We’ve become a culture of memes, and I’m just as guilty as the rest of us. I have a whole Facebook group I administrate that’s just memes, for crying out loud. But some of the things I see people making meme-worthy make me so angry, Invisible Audience, like the one I saw today that said, “A wise person once said that anger is the punishment you give to yourself for a way someone else has done you wrong.” 

 

BULLSHIT. 

 

For years I could not access my anger and instead would move straight into blaming myself for feeling anger and live in shame instead of taking that anger as the bright red warning flag it is supposed to be: the one that is trying to show me that a boundary has been crossed and my needs have been trampled. My anger is here to show me when I’m not showing up for myself; it and ALL my other emotions are necessary roadmaps meant to act as traffic lights on this fucked up, crazy highway we call life. I can no more dismiss anger from my life than I can let go of writing; each time I try I end up weeping in a corner, mourning a piece of myself someone else told me I didn’t need.

 

And that’s really the crux of this whole thing, Invisible Audience. I am done with others’ ideas of what my life should look like. I will not hate people for who they voted for; I will wait to see what kind of person they are. I will not give up any type of food again because someone somewhere said it made them lose weight, so it will probably work for me, too. I will not assume fluoride is bad for me unless I’ve read the damn studies myself or asked an expert. I will not fucking meditate—EVER AGAIN—because *I* am the only one living with the screaming, agonizing trauma that surfaces and *I* am the one that gets to decide whether it’s helpful to continue to do that, not somebody who has found it is helpful for them. 

 

Do I sound angry, Invisible Audience? Because I am. I am angry it has taken me 40 years to find some semblance of a voice that I am willing to trust. I’m angry that so much of our discussion is about deciding who to cut out instead of how to find common ground. I’m tired of the constantly shifting sands of fitting in and how they seem to be getting more and more extreme in terms of dictating peoples’ politics, exercise methods, eating schedules, down time, food choices and even which of their emotions they should try to emote more and which ones they should try to extinguish.

 

When I was younger, I remember coming to a realization that I thought was very profound. Religion and diet have at least one thing in common, I decided: there is no one size fits all. Today, so much of people’s identities seem to be caught up in labels and groups, and it makes me so tired. Can I just sit next to you while you eat your pizza and I have my burger and the person across from us has a salad? Can you meditate while I swim and someone else goes for walks without anyone having to feel the need to proselytize over why their way is the best way? Can we embrace differences and all fit in that way?

 

Well, I can, and that’s all that matters, right Invisible Audience? After all, I’m not here to get everyone else to fit in with me. I’m just trying to find the space to feel like I fit well within my own skin. So here’s my official declaration: I’m letting go of the cult and going my own way. Come with me if you like, but only if you’ve got room for yourself along the way.

 

Love and It’s All Me Kisses

Morgan

 

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