Salisbury.Fake Life, Weekly Update

End-of-the-Year Party

Well, I guess this is going to be one of “those” blog posts. You know the ones. Where the writer waxes poetic about the year gone by, and talks about hopes for the next year. It is going to be one of those, yes, but I’ll try not to bog you down with a lot of “2020 was the worst” stuff. Because even though the pandemic is still ongoing (wear your damn masks and stay home unless you absolutely have to be out), and so many people have had tragedy after tragedy this year, I think this is one of the first years I’ve grown the most into the person I’d like to be.

I had a goal this year of finishing three books I’ve been writing for a little over ten years. I separated out the year into four-month quarters, allowing myself time to get done with each one and have it beta read while I worked on the next one. I didn’t accomplish that goal, but I don’t hate that I didn’t. The person I started out as at the beginning of this year is not who I am now. And that shows in the quality of my writing. I stopped using first person perspective, switched to mostly third limited, and the story just fell out of me.

As I consumed media, I paid attention to the stories being told. Most notably, I watched/listened to a playthrough of Death Stranding, a video game produced by Kojima. I was not prepared for how deeply that story would end up impacting me. But then I decided to look at what made the biggest impression on me, and it was the emotional growth the main character goes through by the time we get to the end. It twists and turns itself around its own story, told in memories mostly, told with tragedy and loss. But at the end, hope remains. I’ve made it sound so cliche, but the relief I felt at the end of the game was profound.

I want to tell a story like that. I want to infuse emotion into my writing so that by the time we reach the end of the story, the audience is relieved and filled with feelings they then get to internalize and see themselves through. I know that’s a lot to task myself with, but I feel fairly confident I can do it. Emotive writing is important, especially in this day and age where emotions are often suppressed for being too intense.

Along with my writing growing, I feel like this year I’ve changed so much about my mindset about myself. I know I’ve talked about my mental health issues, and I will continue to do so because it is an ongoing, lifelong process. The small moments of joy, the reminders it’s okay to be here, the tethers we create to make sure we don’t leave behind what we will miss. Holding on with a white knuckle grip because there has to be something worth it at the end of this, I believe in it. I believe in it with a fierceness I’ve never believed with before.

The power behind that hope, the force of that desire to make it mean something, I wish I could give it to those who struggle. I still have my shitty days. I have them more than I talk about because that’s not what I want to focus on. They’re becoming less frequent, which is fantastic, but I want to hold on to the memory of them so I know how to fight them.

This year was hell for a lot of people. It was horrible and garbage and there’s no amount of gargling that will get the taste of it from the back of our throats, but you are still here. You are still here and you are incredible. You are stunning. I believe in you with the same fierceness I believe there will be good somewhere along the way, and we can pick it up to sling it on our backs to carry us through whatever the world tosses our way. Because we are strong enough to do so. We are capable of battling and making it through, even if that’s all we do is make it through.

I hope this year taught you more about yourself. I hope this year gave you the confidence to accept who you are, and if not, I hope it gave you the boost you needed to make the changes you’ve been wanting to make for yourself.

Next year, there will be book reviews, writing about writing, life talks, recipes. It’s going to be a better year because we will know how to approach it properly with cautious optimism. It’s not over yet, but it will be and we will march forward with a brightness of hope, a determination to conquer anything and everything.

Thank you for going on this ride with me. Thank you for your readership, and for you. I’ll see you next year.

Salisbury.Fake will be updated again after December 31st, 2020.

Happy holidays!.

All my love, Carla

Salisbury.Fake Life

You Don’t Have To Be Alone To Be Lonely

This one’s going to be a ramble, probably. I know, so surprising.

We’re going to talk about loneliness. Sort of. We’re going to talk about how it’s okay to take time to get to know ourselves and forget about being with other people because we deserve to like who we are.

I seriously hate how self-help-y that sounds. But hear me out. I spent the last two decades learning how to hate myself. Acted on it in various ways I won’t talk about in this post (I’ve discussed it before elsewhere), but it all boiled down to the thought that I’m just average/mediocre/run of the mill not worth anyone’s time. Kept me going for a long time. Or so I thought. What it really did was give me a chronic back ache because I hold my tension in my shoulders and my lower back. Makes aerobics fun.

But what’s the point of this? Let’s focus, Carla. I’ve seen some posts recently from some of my favorite content creators who talked about how they were using this quarantine time to get to know themselves a little better, and I suppose I have, too, and I need to tell you it is

u n c o m f y

Seeing how I’ve spoken to myself for the last half of my life really kind of broke my heart. Surprised me. Kind of like looking in the mirror and noticing you had peanut butter on your face all day. “I really let myself do that?”

But it hasn’t been peanut butter. It’s been self-dragging, self-loathing on a level that is kind of destructive, and just ignoring all the people telling me I’m not trash. “Thank you, but I am. It’s fine. I’ve always been this way.”

I haven’t.

We can try and pinpoint where it all started to go in a direction we didn’t think it should, but that is like trying to pick a watermelon seed out of a pile of watermelon seeds. I’d say a needle in a needlestack, but that’s not accurate enough. You can eventually find the needle you want if you search hard enough for the specific characteristics (size of the eye, length, sharp or not, blah blah blah), but watermelon seeds all look like watermelon seeds. They slip away every time you try to take one off the plate, and then you’re left with chasing it around.

The point of all of this rambling is it’s time we started being okay with being alone. I’m not talking about introverted alone, where one recharges after having social time with people. That’s a different kind of being alone. I’m talking about getting to know ourselves and seeing we’re not actually gum on the bottom of a shoe in summer. We are the kid who has the pool so all the parties are at our house. We have what everyone wants. We are admirable. We are strong, capable, and worthy of taking the time to learn how to believe that.

I say all of this knowing I’m going to ignore it like I always have, but the difference is I’ll know I’m ignoring it. Before, I would be all self-help-y and it would be for others. This one is for me. This time I know I’m ignoring good advice from myself, so it’s easier to hold myself accountable. And that is the key. Holding ourselves accountable for the goals we want to achieve and learning the difference between discouragement and destruction. Change is excruciating. It really is. I fucking hate change. I don’t really like swearing on these things, but this requires one. It’s that awful for me. So telling myself to stop calling myself garbage is like when your teacher tells the class, “no notes on this quiz, folks,” and turns around to do work on the computer so everyone uses notes anyway.

What a crock, huh? It feels like that, here at the bottom of this. But it isn’t a crock. It’s a truth I’ve been trying to learn, that I am worth my own time, and I want the people I care about to know it for themselves, too. I don’t know that many will read this, but I hope it helps someone. Maybe someone looking for a sign to start working on themselves.

Be safe as you can be in these weird, awful times. And remember: you are worth your own time. I promise.