Notes from the Blue House

~There is no greater misery than false joys~ -Bernard of Clairvaux Well, interwebs, here we go. I'm sitting in front of this blank screen, cracking my knuckles and sipping my lukewarm coffee. The time has come to look at that heaping plate of spaghetti in my mind and pluck out another strand to face and do battle with.  In my last writing, I told you that I never quite fit in. That I was always aware of some level of force or extra effort when elbowing my way into a social group. The people in my world who have known me over the past decade may find this hard to reconcile because, genuinely, I love people. I connect with others easily and I've honestly never been shy. What my friends and family can't know is that I've lived my life as a shape shifter. A chameleon. I've been so wholly desperate for a sense of belonging with others that I've abandoned myself entirely. After years of stifling myself, I no longer have a grasp of who I really am.  I've spent the

 You ever stare at a blank page and have no idea where to start? The emptiness lending itself to so much possibility that it's paralysing? I have so much to say and it's been so long. It feels like I have a plate of spaghetti in my mind and I need to tell you about each and every strand of pasta but it's all just such a saucy mess and I don't know where to start picking at it. Which piece of this slippery mess should I extricate and hold up for you and say "See this one? This one is important because...." ? You see, I've been feeling like a bit of a mess.  Actually if I'm honest, and I've promised myself  I won't be anything else, I've always been messy in different ways and at varying levels of fucked-uped-ness. Hey, that's probably true for you too.We're all walking around in these meatsacks on this giant rock, trying to have experiences that really mean something. I turned 40 last June, I'm considered to be mid-life at this