You know what I was not meant to have? Control. Self-, others-, situational-, political-, government-, project-, subordinate-. None of it. I am involuntarily exerting control over my words, even as I type them. I used to be able to write freely, flowingly, honestly, carelessly. Not in an “I-don’t-care-about-others” kind of way. Not that at all. I would not say/type things that I intended to deliberately harm anyone. I just typed. And I published. And I did not give anyone a way to respond to my words or thoughts. I did not welcome comments. I invited people to let me know if they wanted to receive updates when I added a post to my blog, and if they accepted the invitation, I included them on the list. That was back in 2001. When hardly anyone knew what a blog was . . . before The Pioneer Woman, before Jen Hatmaker, before Perez Hilton. Thank God, it remained a personal hobby for me and never became what it did for those folks. My experience has been that the moment something that I am passionate about drifts toward becoming monetized or expected, I begin to feel, well, controlled. And when that happens, I almost instantly experience a multisensory and very visceral exfiltration of the joy it once brought me. It happened with the music business. It became far more business than music, and it was converted into a metaphorical flesh-eating disease. It happened with yarn work and selling the things I made. When those projects had a deadline*, it was like my skill and interest levels dwindled to nothing. Even gardening, my multi-seasonal lifeline to multi-dimensional wellness, became less interesting when I got really good at it and set it up to take care of itself in many important ways, e.g. hose-timer-irrigation, self-feeding compost gardening, re-seeding plants, perennial plantings. (Note: I must do seed-starting this season, because I did not last year, and I think that may have been a bit of a down(-er)fall).

Maybe it has to do with something I find recreational and restorative becoming a requirement or an obligation. Maybe that has something to do with being so independent and capricious and whimsical for the first 39 years of my life. Did I never figure out how to preserve those beautiful things about myself while also being interdependent and responsible, and practical? I have to believe that all those very important characteristics can thrive and co-exist in a fully functional way in a fully functional human. Can they not?

I finally bought this domain name — I feel like the cyber-verse has always known it should be mine. I named my blog “Void If Detached” in 2001, and somehow, some way, no one else has thought to claim the name in nearly a quarter of a century. It is such a groovy name/concept. To me, anyway. I just realized that another thing I love about writing this way is that I totally ignore everything I’ve ever learned about formal writing, grammar, and rules of language. And even though some flippin’ pop-up window keeps happening over my words on screen, trying to tempt me to allow artificial intelligence to re-state what I believe I’m stating perfectly fine myself, I automatically dismiss it and forge ahead my own dang way. (Although I will allow it to call my attention to a misspelled word so that I can fix it myself. Misspelling being an abomination and all). I learned two new words the other day: puerile and . . . well, I forgot the other one already. Look it up. It’s a good one. I think I learned it while listening to The Uncool, Cameron Crowe’s memoir. A great listen, by the way — he reads the audiobook. What an amazing life. On the road with Led Zeppelin and The Allman Brothers Band when he was a young teenager. Publishing in Rolling Stone and Cream magazines while still in high school. Rad. Totally Rad.

I must go be practical now and do some errands and take care of some daily life crap. I was never meant to be famous. But I sure would love having a personal assistant to take care of some of the daily crap. 😉