Sunday, August 15, 2010

THE MANY SIDES OF ME


I’ve had two back-to-back, event-filled weekends. One was very different from the other but both were truly great times.

Last week I celebrated a friend’s crystal anniversary. The event started early and ended late. Great food, much booze, tons of fun, and a wealth of laughter filled the time in between. I was able to catch up with old friends and made some new acquaintances and felt like quite the social butterfly when all was said and done.

This weekend was a family event, a reunion of loved ones coming together to celebrate their past, the present and the promises of the future. It was family I didn’t know and had never met before. The entire weekend was whole-heartedly one of the most spiritually uplifting experiences that I have ever had.

Both weekends have left me reflecting on both my personal and professional life. Once again I find myself questioning how best to balance the two, most especially when it comes to my writing and this particular medium.

For some time now I have had to temper my emotions and subsequently censor my writing for all the wrong reasons. For more times than I care to count I have been admonished about some of my writing being better reserved for a private journal that only I can see. It seems that I never know who might be reading my posts, ready to run and tattle about something I put in print. And though I have said many times before that this is my space, to do with as I please and all else be damned, I still want to be respectful of those I love and care most for and how my words might impact them.

But with nine books behind me and many, many more to come, much of me is already in print for all to see and we don’t even want to talk about what might be in the pipeline about to come. I need to write and sometimes I just need to write about the good and the bad of my stuff without feeling like I need to watch what I say and how I say it.

So time with family and friends and some serious self-reflection has me contemplating how best to balance the many sides of me.

2 comments:

Anonymous said...

Think of it this way, Bernie Mac (the comic) used his family in alot of his material. The public loved it and he kept it real, it helped him to cope.
Bridget

Deborah Mello said...

There is truly a method to the madness!