end of year (2015)

I've started this post a good half-dozen times, taking different tacks on breaking down a year that has felt like three - from the trite to the overly-serious to the profanity-filled. 

Nothing really works, because, man, trying to describe this year is fairly futile. Broken down simply, I -

• Got a job
• Left that job
• Got another job
• Presented at a conference
• Wrote an essay that will be published in a real, live, buy-at-Barnes-and-Noble book
• Joined two other "jobs." 
• Realized that my dream job is maybe achievable
• Fell in love with a movie
• Fell out of love with an idea
• Moved out of my parents' house
• Made friends
• Lost friends
• Went to Boston and New York
• Realized that writing lists is no real excuse for poor writing
• Started playing flute again and not hating it or myself.

Maybe in 2016 I'll write a proper post, something more in my normal style, that blend of high-falutin' and hard talk I think I've cultivated a fair amount over this previous year. For now, though, since I have errands to run, and a day job to do, and a hockey game to get to tonight, I'll just link all of you to the pieces I'm proudest of, and finish off with some sincere words. 

I'm proud to have written on what the Baylor sexual assault case means to me as an alumna - in all its shades and complications. I'm proud to have talked about women in sports - hiring, self-promoting, and mentoring - and why we're not faking it. I'm proud to have talked about mental health, and my own struggles with creating. 

I'm proud to have written about the Cole Hamels trade, one of my better pieces of baseball work in the year. I'm proud to admit I was wrong about Nick Williams! 

For Baseball Prospectus, I was proud to write about failure and Daniel Murphy. I also wrote about Matt Harvey being okay, and with two of my favorite people, I wrote about the stupid outfield things every team should have. 

I wasn't as productive in 2015 as I was in 2014. A lot of that can be chalked up to being employed, but some of that is a fault of my own fear - fear that I couldn't write the way people expected me to, a fear that paralyzed my brain and has kept me from trying, because if I don't try, I don't fail. In 2016, I resolve, I promise, that I will not let this keep me down. I'm going to write, and some of it will be crap, but I'm going to write anyway. I'm going to write about baseball, and I'm going to write about life, and I may even write fiction for the fun of it. 

In the end, we are what we choose to be, and I choose to write. 

Love, 

Kate

Particular thanks and love to: Jen Man Ramos, Kailen Nourse, Graham Jenkins, Jarrett, Michael Baumann, Patrick Dubuque, Sam Miller, Harry Pavlidis, Russell Carleton, Mike Gianella, the people of EDSBS, Katy Clarke, Levi Weaver, Or Moyal, and my collegiate sister Sara. 

on words, onwards

As we come towards the end of this year, it's a natural time to stop and take stock of everything that's happened in the last block of human-designated time. It's also a time to look forward, perhaps more than we normally do, and attempt to make plans that surely time and providence will throw astray.

Being a writer is part of my identity. It's how I see myself, it's part of the lens through which I view the world. Sometimes, though, things happen that make me wonder if it's time to hang up the old inkwell, stop pretending to myself that I can do this, and take those tentative steps to finding out something else I am - a painful kind of freedom, perhaps.

I'm a baseball writer, or I was - a narrowing of the view, a specific set of talents. I worked hard and studied and drove and spent time I didn't really have to spend throwing myself into this world I wasn't born to, for a good portion of the time relishing my outsider status, using it as the fuel of the engine that drives me to be the best at something - the very best.

There comes a day, though, where you realize you aren't. You aren't the best female writer. You aren't the best female prospect evaluator. You aren't the best, at anything, and you never will be. Hell, you're barely more than mediocre in a lot of ways.

That hurts. It's a realization everyone but the most self-deluded has, but it hurts, particularly in a year when so many other things had gone wrong.

I haven't been able to really write, recently. Yes, there are these blog posts, and these rants, and the 500 words I spout on Twitter daily, but there has been no inspiration in me for big, life-changing works. It's even more difficult around this time of year, because (a) there's no baseball to look to, no commonly available source of even artificial inspiration and (b) I'm a sad jealous soul, who can never be content with what she has.

I finally crawl my way into an online newsletter, and I want to be in an end-of-year list. I have a position where I can write whatever comes into my head, as long as it is tangentially related, and I want to write non-tangentially related things (and I can't think of anything, at all, like my head is a radio tuned to an empty station.) I get a real job, I want a different one. I'm never content - which, sure, drives me to always want more, but is also exhausting.

If I give up writing, like something in my soul is clamoring for me to do - if I give up my position and my voice and crawl back into the hole so many wish I would - that's giving up. That's unacceptable to me, something I couldn't forgive myself for - but there's only so many more nights I can sit crying on my couch because my head is full of fog and I hate myself for claiming to be a writer.

Last year's end-of-year post was full of hope. Hope that I'd find a "real job." Hope that I'd write something incredible in 2015. Hope that things were finally turning around.

I wish I still had that much hope.

The "Columnist" Refuted

Every six months the clock turns over and it’s time for another writer to write a “comical,” “humorous,” “amusing,” “educational” piece on How To Be A Sports Fan Or How To Fake It As A Woman Because Clearly No Woman Is A Fan Of Sports.

Used to be that I’d get furious about this, get all up in a righteous froth about it, bang out a few hundred words on my personal blog, and move on. Now, however? I’m just tired, and a little bit sad.

This isn’t even truly a response to that article, because that article has been written at least a dozen times. You’ve seen it in Cosmo, you’ve heard it from your well-meaning but ill-advised friends, if you (as it seems 90% of the readers of this site are) are a male, you’ve probably benefited from its beliefs at one point or another in your life. Change yourself, fake it, because you need to even if you don’t want to.

I’m tired, because no matter how the situation improves for women in and around the sports community, it feels like there’s just one more thing, just one more thing that constantly proves that we’re not there yet.


If it’s not Dusty Baker spouting off about domestic violence in an uninformed way, it’s the reminder that Andrew Friedman knowingly employed a rapist for a considerable time, with little to no explanation other than he was valuable in a baseball way. It’s that femininity is demonized, and men die for fear of being called weak little girls. It’s walking into a press box and being told that you don’t belong there. It’s the constant stream of tweets, of being afraid to say what you actually mean. It’s this quote right here:

“Women have been pretending to like sports to snare husbands and fuck buddies for decades. This isn't anything new.”


This is how we’re erased. Painted into a corner, forgotten about, placated with “Groupie” shoes, “talent scout” tee-shirts, told our feelings, our thoughts, our opinions don’t matter. Our words, our bodies are only good enough to look at or laugh at, and certainly not respect. It’s funny to give a woman a “talent scout” tee-shirt, because heaven forbid she actually be scouting talent.


It’s funny how the assumption is that since only one thing is wanted from us, we only want one thing. It’s sad how that assumption can be taken as fact by the ones who it is assumed of.


Fake it ‘til you make it, girls, but also learn the blood type of the fourth coach of the team that was the spiritual predecessor to the current team that moved to your city from a different city ten years ago. Make yourself into their dream sporty girl, but also never forget that you’re not as good as they are at this thing.

Forget the “Girl’s Guide To Faking To Like Sports Because The Only Thing ‘Girls’ Want Or Need Is Men’s Approval And Desire.1” I need the “Women’s Guide To Surviving In This Awful World, Because I Dared To Love Something That Won’t Love Me Back.” Actually, even better: the “People’s Guide To Enjoying Something They Like In Various Situations, None Of Which Need To Be Connected To Anything More Than Enjoyment Of That Thing.”

Here’s my advice to any human on this earth wanting to learn more about sports, for any reason they see fit: Do it! Do it because you want to, not because you think or have been told you must. Go read the writing that’s out there, not because it’s going to get you a free drink. Ask questions, because you want to learn. Go to games because the team is hot. Go to games because the team is good. Go to games because it’s a good way to while away a summer’s afternoon.

Or don’t, because that’s completely valid, too. Just don’t do something you don’t want to because some misguided soul said you had to.

1) Please note the infantilizing “girls” in a piece aimed at women old enough to legally drink. Go get free beers at a bar, but don’t remind men that you’re a self-actualized adult capable of making your own decisions!

and then I do—

I'm a writer, but I don't know what kind of writer I am.

I tend towards the high-falutin', the introspective, the self-praising and self-pitying, because if you write what you know, then you write about yourself. I write about baseball in any number of ways, but none of them seem to really fit. I'm a writer who can go weeks without writing - cursing my inability to write while not bothering to put ink on virtual paper.

I'd like to be the best, but the distance marker keeps moving, and I wasn't going to make it there anyway, so what kind of writer am I? I want to have that fountain of ideas, thoughts pouring out my fingers like the benedictions of some blessed something or other, but I get blocked. I get blocked, and I get frustrated, and I write self-pitying lunacies that no one reads (and nor should they). I'm still not sure which side of the parenthesis to put the full stop on, as well.

I read so many great writers and good writers and writers of meaning and purpose and thought and weight and I wonder what am I doing here? All these filled niches and where do I belong? I can't be the best baseball writer, there are at least ten already out there. I can't be the best feminist-thought-sports-ramble writer, because there are so many stronger and smarter women out there being that before me. I just have this little blog, this little thing, this little voice, and when I'm afraid I'm losing it I don't speak out, I just let it shrivel up inside me, ineffectively breaking up my thoughts into 140-character missives that splash and sink, like pebbles in a pond.

Maybe, as writers, we were better off before page views. There is so much more to read now, which is both great and terrifying - what if I am good, but am lost in the noise of those who are better?

See, though, there comes in the Southern and (semi-)Evangelical and Female Upbringing - the immediate urge to quash the "I am good" beneath the "No, not really, don't ever think that I'd be willing to promote myself, I'm just nobody." Because I'm not good, not compared to the giants I look up to.

I don't know what I'm looking for, in writing, other than the fact that in so many ways, I'm looking for the terrible thing I've been looking for my entire life - someone to validate my existence in some way that sticks, that this comment or that one or this retweet will be the thing that finally tells my heart-sick soul that "You matter!" "You belong!" I think too much, though, and I know that it won't happen, so I don't write because inaction is better than failure.

and then I do—

I do write, and I make myself hit "publish" and I move on and I try.

I come not to praise, but to bury.

There's a thin line I walk, between being supportive and wanting to be the best.

I'm intensely competitive. I always have been, whether in music or in sports or in life. I want to be the best, or I'll be nothing. As I've matured, it's gotten easier, little by little, to moderate this driving urge, to take "the best" and turn it into "very good," to not let it get in between me and friendships, me and feminism, me and the right side of the line.

Every once in a while, though, it gets the better of me. Instead of being happy for someone, I get jealous. I let that little voice - the voice informed by experience and chaos - tell me that if she's going to get that, then I'm never going to. I wasn't first, so I'm not good enough. It's poison in my ears, and it's counterproductive.

I used to be one of those people who wanted to be the only. I wanted to be the only woman writing for a major site. I wanted to be the only woman "scouting" at Frisco games. I was incredibly lonely, and yet, educated by that societal pressure that tells women that there isn't enough room for them, I wanted to be alone. I've tried to grow up, tried to be a good person, tried to be supportive and helpful and mentoring, tried to turn my anger outward instead of inward, but sometimes...sometimes I'm just not strong enough. Sometimes I can't be happy when someone gets an opportunity I wanted, even if it means that another woman is carving out space for themselves in such a difficult landscape.

I'm not writing this for your pity, or your scorn. I'm writing this because I sat down to work on an important piece that is due sooner than I'd like, but couldn't, because my heart was sick and sad and jealous.

It's a journey, I know. It's not the most difficult journey, and I've got plenty to be happy with, but that's the curse of it. Right now, I'm not happy because I know I'm not the best, and I don't know if I will be happy because I won't ever be the best, but right now is not the future.

Some day, I'll be good enough for me, maybe. Some day, I'll be at peace with other's accomplishments. Today, though, I'm not good enough.

A Response

"You have to be your own best advocate." A charming thought, if applied incorrectly.

It should not be the responsibility of the underrepresented to claw and fight and create their own spaces. Many times it falls to them, through gross negligence or actual malevolence, but it should not be, and those in the underrepresented who point out that fact are not lazy, or underprepared, or unwilling to take up that task. Those who point out these facts are those who can see that it is not their "fault," or indeed, a "fault" at all that they are underrepresented. It is the fault of a society (in a microcosm, in baseball's case) that is weighted so heavily towards one group of people that not even a herd of elephants could begin to balance the scales.

Yes, it is irresponsible to sit on your own work and expect, magically, the world to open up and recognize you, but it is also irresponsible to declare that anyone who is marginalized through no fault of their own preparation simply "didn't want it enough." Both self-promotion and a general aid have to work hand-in-hand, with the elder, established generation helping the younger. Where we run into problems is that the elder generation only wishes to help those in similar status to themselves - in particular, writers of a certain demographic feeling that only writers of that same demographic are prepared and educated in such a way to make them the "best."

It can be difficult to find these underrepresented writers to fulfill your criteria, see, when your criteria are so written that only one human on earth fits them (suggesting, dear readers, that the criteria were created after the person was found, rather than the other way around). You can say that you made good-faith attempts to hire from the underrepresented populations, but without transparency of any kind, and actual change in the many-year history of any publication, that claim of good faith rings false.

I don't apply this only to the singular website that sparked today's discussion. I apply this to all websites, all forums, and all teams. If there were actual attempts this goal of diversity, surely it would have been achieved - or if not achieved, then still had progress made towards it.

To quote myself from earlier: "It's fun to say 'there are no women/minority writers!' but of course there aren't! The system is set up against them."

The answer to this is not to simply bury one's head in the sand and say "Well, this is how it is and it will never change." The answer is to, through candor and open development, open those doors and build ramps for those who want to walk through. You did not appear out of thin air, replete with all the knowledge you possess. You cannot expect anyone else too, as well - especially anyone starting at an already stated disadvantage! Instead of setting up impossible gates, use your position to break down those walls. Train the people you want to hire - you're not paying anyone, anyway, so what is there to lose?

I may have missed many things in this quickly written, fairly unimportant essay on some things I possibly covered better in 140 characters, but I can finish with this.

We on the outside can agitate for change, but the sad truth of reality is that no real change will happen without allies inside the room where it happens. All we want is to be treated with respect, and given the same opportunities.

And if it sounds like I'm writing about something more important than baseball, consider this: Everything is connected. This may be my hill to die on, but even I can see the deep cultural connection to sports.

A little sadder, a little wiser.

A year ago, I wrote this comment on Spencer Hall's always excellent, always exquisite college football season opener. 

A year later, a little sadder, a little wiser: College football makes you part of something bigger than yourself, and that is what makes it so dangerous. It makes fools of us mortals here, the idea of belonging, the idea of defending something so meaningfully meaningless, it makes you willing to step outside your normal bounds of human rationality.

We are the one who believe in miracles, you know. We name our plays after prayers, we speak even jokingly in fears and suppositions, we marry logic and the unseen and we balance this on the backs of young men, the backs of children who we do not know. We come here to our temples built of stone and steel and concrete and we yell out our supplications to the wind.

We have come to no Christian end, we were always there, we will always be there and we know this – yet we come back year after year, hoping that something in this, something in this family balances out the bad, that the money that we raise for good, that the life-extending joy we get, that this…thing is worth it.

Sometimes we’re brought back down to earth, and it hurts so much and reminds us that we are human (or it doesn’t and maybe for a second we think about what happened to us that we got here). Are we ourselves, or are we this thing we’ve given to ourselves, given ourselves (and our dollars and our time) to?
Is this thing worth it?

I don’t know if it is. I don’t know if it isn’t.

"Sorry"

I just wish he'd say "sorry."

It's great that Baylor's hired a top law firm (and two very good, experienced lawyers) to investigate how the university handled the tragedy that I'm going to refer to as The Event, as I am tired of typing it out. It's great that students still feel safe and comfortable on Baylor's verdant campus, and it's great that the football team has moved on and is ready to play their first game.

There's just the little fact that a control-F of the two press releases on The Event (both conveniently buried at the bottom of Baylor's homepage, past the fluff about move-in and summer activities) reveals no "sorry" and no "apologize/apology."

Oh, I know. The hope is that the aforementioned investigation clears the university of all wrong-doing, and there's hope that there won't be a civil suit, and I get all of that but how can you not see that someone did something wrong, and therefore an apology is demanded. Not only to the victim, but to the alumni base who has stood by this university in times of trial before.

Stand up and say you're sorry.

We require it of our toddlers - say sorry! And mean it! We preach on it in chapel - the true meaning of Christianity is forgiveness, and humility. We require it of students who feud with their roommates! Why, now, is it so impossible for you to stand up and say it?

We're sorry.

We're sorry that such a deed happened in our hallowed halls, on our beloved campus. We're sorry that our inaction hurt not only someone who should have been protected above all else, but that it hurt the thousands of alumni that we love to ask for money. We're sorry that even if we had no idea that we were bringing this onto our campus, we did not react in a way to the crime that would leave us without the need to say "sorry."

We're sorry that this former student-athlete fell through the cracks of personal responsibility. We're sorry that we somehow overlooked something, somewhere. Mainly, we're sorry that we failed - because we did fail, and we need to not fail again.

Just say it. I promise no one will think the lesser of you for it.

In Good Faith

The university whose ring I wear on my right hand, whose diploma I hang on my wall, whose hat can be seen in many pictures, had a student-athlete, football player Sam Ukwuachu, convicted today of a 2013 sexual assault of a former Baylor student-athlete, Jane Doe.

This case came to light a few days ago, when rumors of why exactly Ukwuachu had been "soft-spended" from the football team following his transfer from Boise State started coming to light. Today, Texas Monthly ran a story on the background of this case, as well as the university and athletic department's responses to the case at the local (campus) level.

These responses, if Texas Monthly's reporting is true, are unacceptable.

But after the school’s investigation (so insufficient, according to the court, that the judge sustained a motion from the prosecution to restrict the defense from referencing it during the trial), Baylor took no action to discipline Ukwuachu, even while charges were still pending. From Baylor’s brief investigation, to its failure to consider disciplinary action, to its defensive coordinator’s statements this summer about the player’s expected return, the school’s idea of how to respond to serious rape allegations is seriously out of step with that of the courts.

How can I in good conscience throw my support behind a university that seemingly cared not about someone who so direly needed care?

One of Baylor Football's favorite things to tout is how this is a university (and an athletic program) of second chances. That forgiveness and help are Christian values, and how a good environment and support from strong coaches can change someone's life. These are admirable traits, taken at face value, and there have been proven success stories from this program.

In the shadow of second chances, however, can be found the possibility for deep shame. When does a second chance become an excuse to keep a talented player, rather than an attempt to help a human being?

When does athletics trump the human mission of the school...and when does the "Christian" mission of the school create problems when dealing with crimes of a sexual nature?

It keeps coming back to this: What if Jane Doe had been me? How can I feel comfortable in recommending my friends, the young women I know and love, go to a university that has shown what appears to be only a passing interest in treating potential victims of horrible crimes with respect?

I went to Baylor. I love Baylor, the institution, the professors I had, the education I received, the traditions I passed down, the family I gained. I also understand Baylor - and what the good and the bad of the religious mission can be.

However: Even if you, in your misguided ivory towers, think that a young woman (or man) who is reporting an assault of a sexual nature somehow "sinned" in the crime committed against them - even if you don't believe their tale until it is proven in court - even though "innocent until proven guilty" is the technical law of the land - how can you in any good faith force a victim, even an alleged one, to share classes, to share rooms, with the accused? How can you put that burden on them - that they must bend themselves and their injured selves to your will, when they are hurting - is not the Christian mission one of healing?

There should not be a cherry-picking of forgiveness away from aiding those who are hurting.

I know that there is more still to be seen in this case - but by being silent, statements are said.

Tightropes

I long for the safe spotlight - holding an audience in the palm of my hand, anonymously. I would have killed for solos in college, for that brief moment when I got to step outside of the group and prove myself, but only for a second, a brief minute, before being absorbed back into the warm comfort of a larger group. 

Wind ensembles (and orchestras) hold both some of my best and worst memories. Competition is what kept me in music, and what drew me to sports, and what keeps you alive can also kill you. I'm seven years removed from my first All-State selection, and the pride I have in that accomplishment still sits hot in my chest some days, both warming me and warning me. 

I'm older now, obviously. I'm not "the best band director in the state of Texas," as a journal from my senior year of high school amusingly posits for my future. I've lived through mental breakdown, instrumental burnout, pain and sorrow and also joy. I graduated with a very expensive degree with a major that doesn't exist outside of that narrow world of music. I've played flute maybe ten time since I graduated. It doesn't mean that music doesn't still live inside me. 

These days, the most use I get out of my degree is putting together playlists and judging the hell out of anthem singers. 

I miss performing, especially on days when the mundane world is a little to close (and then I want to slap myself, because how artsy-pretentious is that, the "mundane world," if I were my own editor I'd cut that in a hot second.) I miss the way that music gets inside the bones, can create life from ink and paper. Most of all, I miss that precipice, being balanced on that point where you're both inside and outside, selfishly wringing the music for your own meaning while trying to let the audience have theirs. 

It's hard to get this back to sports, particularly now that I've stopped typing this to conduct music at my desk multiple times. Where does it connect? That competitiveness - everyone working both together and for themselves. You thought really great music came together through pure collaboration? No more than a good team is made of up truly selfless individuals. That's the dirty side of both music and sports - to be the best, you have to be a degree of selfish. 

It's that balancing point I was talking about - that's where the best happens. You walk the tightrope, multiple tightropes, and sometimes you fall off. Sometimes you get back on the same rope. Sometimes you find a new one. 

Sometimes you end up sitting ten stories up listening to yourself from seven years ago and wondering where this tightrope goes. 

Rambling on about shoes and the meaning thereof.

Got some new shoes today, technically for my birthday last week. 

I have to be honest, I’m not sure how I feel about them, and that’s a problem. Not just because they were a very wonderful thoughtful gift, but because it’s a symptom. 

I’m constantly having to adjudicate myself, address myself, and consider the way I’m presenting myself when I’m at the park. We’re not just talking issues of professionalism. I work for a Fortune 500 company in real life. I know professional. But I have to be so careful that I’m not giving off an air of “I’m just here for the boys.” or that’s all I’ll be judged on. 

Heck, it’s all I’ve been judged on, sometimes. 

But that I’m sitting here thinking “I can’t wear my new baseball-themed flats to a game because of what it might say about me in the minds of outside observers…”

I’m not sure how I feel about that. 

No Words

I've got no words.

I'm three pieces behind, and yet all I have mental energy for is sitting on my bed watching hours and hours of hockey. I can't even begin to write this without feeling a kind of anxiety and frustration that is fairly nameless, my words eaten up in the blackness of my brain.

It's fucking baseball. (I don't normally curse on here.) It's not like I'm over here crafting the greatest speeches the world has ever seen. It's baseball. It's a piece on MLB and social media; a piece on the Texas Rangers minor leagues; a piece on Jurickson Profar. It's nothing earth-shattering, nothing mind boggling, nothing that should be causing me this much pain and heartache.

Writing is who I am, though, and if I cannot write, I am a failure.

I've beaten this particular drum before, attempted to exorcise my demons through written word, forcing myself to put fingers to keyboard despite my complete numbness towards creation.

It's extremely easy not to try, as I wrote earlier this week, plagiarizing myself in my utter lack of creativity. It's easy to curl up in a ball of non-being, losing myself in stupid tweets about hockey and an utter indifference towards my responsibilities.

Though, who would want me to write right now? My words are insipid and uninspired, my ideas flabby as my body, and I delete far more than I can. I've had so much coffee, and yet I still feel exhausted. Nothing works.

I've got no words.

On baseball, burnout, and the lure of giving up.

We all know the sporting cliches, the words and phrases supposed to pull from us the very last ounces of reserve. Give until you have no more, then find that last bit and give again, yes?

That sentiment is true other places than sports, as I’m sure everyone would agree. We see it in the workplace, we see it in school, we see it in life itself. The only problem with this is: When do you stop? When is okay to not juice the last few dregs of your soul, of your mind, of your heart into what you’re doing? When is it okay to look back and take a break?

Or can you ever?

Baseball is as big a part of my life as some people’s significant others surely are. Now, I don’t say that in a cheeky “baseball is my boyfriend!” kind of way, because that’s not who I am. For me, it’s just an immutable fact, like “my eyes are green” or “my wrists are screwed up.” Baseball is a part of my being, which is why being at a place where it’s hard to write about it, even harder to work up any real and true passion for it hurts.

I’ve been burned out before. In some ways, I still am: I played flute for eleven years, making it my major and my life, and walked away after I graduated. It’s now been almost a year and a half since I walked across that stage, and I’ve been able to play flute with a real sense of peace maybe four times in these last few months. It’s hard to have to be perfect.

I don’t mean that in some kind of self-indulgent way. I’m well aware that “perfection isn’t a destination, but a journey,” but that journey is what’s killing me. It’s nearly impossible to be good, much less great, at everything, but what else less is worth anything? If I’m not close to the best at this writing, at my “real job,” at everything but the parts of life that don’t leave physical evidence, then what am I?

Of course, it's really easy to contemplate the easy way out. If you can't be the best at anything, then why try? Just float along in a sea of mediocrity, never trying to be good, because failure only happens when you try. 

That's where I am right now, to be quite honest. At the intersection of doubt, exhaustion, and frustration, knowing what I don't know but not having time or energy to learn it. 

I may not write very much this year, and it kills me inside to realize that. Because what am I, if not a writer? 

writing exercise

Writer's block is deleting every sentence you start, because the words just aren't there and you aren't making any sense, and nothing you ever put to paper will ever be good enough ever again. 

It's writing the previous sentence, deciding you need coffee, getting distracted, and never actually getting back to either the piece, or the coffee (or the third thing.) 

It's being so utterly frustrated that you consider giving up this "writing thing" entirely, because who are you to want to write something good and interesting and fascinating (much less published)? 

It's having an idea, but not the brainpower to explore it. It's not having an idea. It's having an idea, only to find out that someone else wrote it far better than you ever could have, and again, you consider the various options for escape. 

It's spending hours dithering over what your perfect Spotify playlist to jar your brain out of its deadened mode is, and then giving up and actually doing your work. 

It's having to actually work, at a job, because no one pays writers anymore, and being so scared that the "grind" is going to exhaust you forever, is going to kill your creative soul, and render you bland and imitative. 

It's writing a list of one-to-two sentence complaints starting with "it" because there's something else you want to write but maybe if you can just make yourself put words onto paper and not let yourself delete anything but misspellings maybe just maybe you'll re-awaken that hibernating voice that lets you put pen to paper or fingers to keyboard and create. 

#BellLetsTalk

Depression is a multi-hued thing.

It's also something that is still impossible to talk about without fear of recrimination, retaliation, or misunderstanding from those in charge of your life and well-being.

I've struggled with depression my whole life. It was unnamed and destructive in high school, named and slightly more handled in college, and now it's something that's a part of my life, not in charge of it (most of the time.)

The hardest thing, every time, is to start the conversation. It's difficult to turn to someone and say "I'm drowning in my own mind," and not have it feel like an admission of weakness, an admission of failure, and those feelings can just contribute to the downward spiral (or at least they do for me).

So this is me, starting the conversation. If you struggle with depression, with bipolar, with anxiety, know that first, you aren't alone. Second, a single step is a still a huge leap, and I (we) am (are) here to listen.

-Kate