After reading your post, so fluid and confident, I conclude that long ago you captured and leashed your internal voice of shame, allowing it to run loose on occasion to goad you into writing as well as you want. You write like you are in complete control, which is always what a reader wants from a writer.
Hey, I had nuns too and a powerfully critical mother as well. Their frustration and anger and perhaps jealousy was understandable, but so painful when aimed at a sensitive clueless kid. I am 66 now, though, and if I don’t tell people that I admire them or love their art or appreciate their contributions to society, I may never have the chance again. I am seizing the day with both hands! And I am serious about your writing style - it is lucid and thoughtful while being (at times) hilariously funny.
I have never lived in Ireland, (grew up in sunny California) but there are strong familial strains of shame and internal denigration all the same. So I can agree with Bob - I needed to read this today and probably every day. I simply do LOVE the way you write, Laura, and I admire you enormously. Such a brave, honest, intelligent and funny woman - you are.
Oh Shu, that's such a lovely compliment that I quite literally do not know what to do with it apart from feel all weird and thank you very sincerely. The nuns who taught me at school would NOT be happy haha!
I'm not going to say this is brilliant, because that absolutely wouldn't help at all.
It is, though.
But I didn't say that, so - everything's fine.
>>"Once you do, lots of things don’t get easier. The voice doesn’t go away, but you learn to recognise it for what it is."
This is so true and so useful. It's such a cruel myth that experience makes these feelings magically go away. That kind of false hope is the very opposite of a kindness, an awful thing to bestow on someone. But...maybe it's like what someone - I think it was Mark Manson - said about creative struggles: problems in life never end, they merely get exchanged and/or upgraded into *better* problems. Maybe we can upgrade our inner voices into wiser, smarter a-holes. A better grade of broken relationship with ourselves?
Thank you Mike. As usual you have much sense to share, even if we are mortal enemies. And for what it’s worth, I like to imagine the shouting woman has one shoulder permanently sloping lower than other from carrying all her stuff in one bag. It’s a small price to pay for not owning a backpack though. Weird shoulders, normal bag.
After reading your post, so fluid and confident, I conclude that long ago you captured and leashed your internal voice of shame, allowing it to run loose on occasion to goad you into writing as well as you want. You write like you are in complete control, which is always what a reader wants from a writer.
Hey, I had nuns too and a powerfully critical mother as well. Their frustration and anger and perhaps jealousy was understandable, but so painful when aimed at a sensitive clueless kid. I am 66 now, though, and if I don’t tell people that I admire them or love their art or appreciate their contributions to society, I may never have the chance again. I am seizing the day with both hands! And I am serious about your writing style - it is lucid and thoughtful while being (at times) hilariously funny.
I have never lived in Ireland, (grew up in sunny California) but there are strong familial strains of shame and internal denigration all the same. So I can agree with Bob - I needed to read this today and probably every day. I simply do LOVE the way you write, Laura, and I admire you enormously. Such a brave, honest, intelligent and funny woman - you are.
Oh Shu, that's such a lovely compliment that I quite literally do not know what to do with it apart from feel all weird and thank you very sincerely. The nuns who taught me at school would NOT be happy haha!
'Say what you want to say' - it's a pleasure to read what you say. Thank you.
Thank you Niamh. And thanks for being here since the beginning!
Know, just know, that one person thousands of kilometers away needed to hear and read this , today. Thank you.
Thanks Bob. I hope you do the thing.
I'm not going to say this is brilliant, because that absolutely wouldn't help at all.
It is, though.
But I didn't say that, so - everything's fine.
>>"Once you do, lots of things don’t get easier. The voice doesn’t go away, but you learn to recognise it for what it is."
This is so true and so useful. It's such a cruel myth that experience makes these feelings magically go away. That kind of false hope is the very opposite of a kindness, an awful thing to bestow on someone. But...maybe it's like what someone - I think it was Mark Manson - said about creative struggles: problems in life never end, they merely get exchanged and/or upgraded into *better* problems. Maybe we can upgrade our inner voices into wiser, smarter a-holes. A better grade of broken relationship with ourselves?
Also, surely people who don't use backpacks just put everything in their pockets? And by "people" I mean "men"? https://www.vox.com/2016/9/19/12865560/politics-of-pockets-suffragettes-women So I bet that lady who yelled at you has a LOT she needs to unpack in her life, in every sense...
Thank you Mike. As usual you have much sense to share, even if we are mortal enemies. And for what it’s worth, I like to imagine the shouting woman has one shoulder permanently sloping lower than other from carrying all her stuff in one bag. It’s a small price to pay for not owning a backpack though. Weird shoulders, normal bag.