i’m becoming more authentic and i’m losing followers. WTF
ok so i kind of feel like i’m dying today. if you know me, you know there is a part of me that is a total hypochondriac. one of my eyes is kinda swollen, i’ve also been so tired recently and i automatically think ok this is the end. here i go. goodbye world and everything and everyone i have ever loved.
i think watching my mom be sick for so many years has really fucked with my head. i hate it i hate it i hate it i hate it.
i thought about her this morning. she bought a horse yesterday and it made her very happy. she loves to hike but i don’t know the last time she did.
i drove to the desert for a few days and i think i would love to go hiking with my mom. to just laugh with her. not us talking about trauma and pain. but i don’t know when that will happen. i’d really like for it to because we have already lost so much time, her and i.
my mama’s horse - she has dreamed of having a farm since she was little and now at 53 she’s doing it!!! she has 30 animals now and counting and i think she loves them more than any humans lol ❤️
so i’m in Terlingua. the energy is so weird out here. and it’s also hot as fuck. i came because i needed to get away.
from what?
probably from my own head. except unfortunately my head did in fact travel here with me. no but really, it has been so cloudy back home in the Hill Country.
the clouds are giving oppression and claustrophobia LOL and i am highly attuned to the weather. just needed some sun. i think to myself what a privileged thing to be able to do Emma, to just drive 7 hours because you wanted some sun.
writing these blog posts has been quite revealing as to how unkind and judgmental i can be towards myself. like a real big asshole. cut throat and vile and intense. with my sailor mouth and my big old female cock. i’ve got a bigger one than most dudes i meet. seriously. i am very brave and a lot of men i meet are just...not.
anyways. sometimes i look at old photos or videos of me... learning the guitar, dancing, doing something funny, traveling, just being myself... and i get very, very sad. because i remember what i was thinking during those times.
i remember how insecure i felt or how depressed i was or how i did not fully see myself and i think wow, you did not see how amazing and brilliant and beautiful and talented you were then!!! ugh!
and holy fuck, you probably can’t see it now!
holy fuck, I CAN’T SEE IT NOW.
then i want to crawl into a hole of overwhelm and rot.
what will it take?
for me to truly, really, deeply, fall in love with myself? with all of myself?
will it take death? me dying, or someone else?
am i dying now? is that whats going on? oh fuck. should i go to the hospital?
* potential panic attack has entered the chat *
no, i already went to the ER in March because i thought i was having a heart attack but really i was just grieving so deeply i thought it was killing me.
me two months in Colorado ago chain smoking cigarettes after going to the ER for what was just deep panic and grief around the loss of connection and love with my family
will it require a shock?
like me getting acid thrown onto my face to realize how beautiful i am? or me getting vocal dystonia and losing my voice for me to realize the gift from GOD that i have to sing the way i do?
me losing a leg to understand how deeply i love to dance?
my mother or my father or a brother dying to realize how deeply i love them and forgive them and don’t give a fuck about the abuse or the pain i just want to hug everyone forever and never let any of ‘em go?
or can i learn to do it now?
what does it even mean to love myself? to love life? to love others?
i think it’s all the same.
when i first started sharing my bare naked soul on social media, there was suuuuch an innocence about it.
i shared because i am a writer and i love expressing myself to the world. i shared for family and for my soul and for my poetry and for the people that started following along. i shared for connection and for empathy and for exposing deep, raw truths. every single one of my most precious friends i have in my life now i have met through the internet one way or another. i’ve gotten loads of opportunities through instagram. truly, thank God for it.
but something shifted after the pandemic happened and cancel culture and internet mobs because more of a thing. during those years, and up to now, i’ve really started to realize how tender and sensitive i really am. how likes and followers and negative comments and views and numbers actually really, really fuck with my head.
how me sharing a vulnerable piece of writing or a song and exposing it to not only criticism but also praise from thousands of people before i even have the chance to really sit with it, has distorted my art and caused me to build really high and tall and dense walls around my heart.
i am such a lover and at my best i am so fucking soft. i hate when i feel myself harden. it makes me sad because we could all die at any moment and any moment i spend not loving is a waste.
and not to mention the amount of people with literally zero emotional intelligence or passion who try to fix me or offer me advice when i simply share stories or my art. i actually don’t want to be fixed, i’m more than happy with my imperfections and messy humanity.
and, i’m not asking for advice you fucktards.
nor do i need it...especially from you. lol.
I’M AN ARTIST. I’M HERE TO LIVE A GREAT STORY AND THEN SHARE SAID STORY. that’s it, gtfo of here with your dumb enlightened bullshit BROTHHERRRRRR and SISTARRRRRR.
so yeah, social media is a double edged sword. i love it and i hate it. i need better boundaries around it and this blog is helping me with that. i love that no on can comment on here. it’s just me sharing my heart and if people resonate then i won’t even know. if they hate it, I WON’T EVEN KNOW. I DON’T EVEN KNOW IF ANYONE READS THIS. THANK GOD.
ignorance is bliss. i strive to be more ignorant.
* chef’s kiss *
but something kinda shitty is happening on social media these days.
i get maybe 1/3 of the engagement i used to.
i’ve lost about 6,000 followers in the past few months and counting.
i’ve had over 500 people unsubscribe from my email list and every time i send out one of these, more people leave. THEY JUST LEAVE.
so it feels that the more authentic i become...the more “followers” i lose. ouch.
SO YEAH I’M FEELING ABANDONED. FEELING LIKE NOW THAT I HAVE MY THING, MY PURPOSE, MY PASSION, MY BEAUTIFUL VOICE, NO ONE FUCKING CARES AND IN FACT, THEY LEAVE!!! WHAT IS THAT.
well, what a beautiful opportunity to heal the belief that being big and powerful, that being who i truly am, means i will be disliked or burned or rejected or hated or abandoned.
what a beautiful opportunity to realize EVEN MORE how sensitive i am, and how to tend to my sweet lil pisces rising ass and midwestern heart on even deeper levels.
what a beautiful lesson...me still committing every cell of myself to my purpose even if i am the only one who cares.
and also, what a wonderful way to see how i hold onto lack for dear life.
cause instead of celebrating the people that DO care about my work, that DO still follow me after all of this wild change and transformation...instead of being so humbly, gutturally GRATEFUL for that and for my family and friends and loved ones that champion me every day...or the fact that i even get to sing at all even if it’s just in my car...i’m worried about some strangers on the internet WHO I WILL PROBABLY NEVER MEET disapproving of me.
instead of just CHOOSING to be in love with myself and my life (because love is a choice we make) simply for the sake of being alive, no matter what is happening around me, I’M PISSED THAT SOME RANDOS WHO I PROBABLY WOULDN’T EVEN LIKE ANYWAYS, unfollowed ME. ME!!! DO YOU KNOW WHO I AM?! DID YOU KNOW I’M GONNA BE A STAR. DID YOU KNOW I NEED VALIDATION SO BADLY FROM EVERYONE OR ELSE I DREAM ABOUT QUITTING EVERYTHING AND BECOMING A NUN.
ope. reality check.
so today i have decided that i will continue my practice of being so. humbly. grateful for all that i do have, instead of agonizing over my life and myself and my health and my career and my relationships and my appearance and my finances and my current reality not being enough.
i think that’s the first step in true self love. loving and accepting each moment, every sweet and precious and fleeting moment, as they come, and hurling myself into a superhuman-Buddha level of presence...like every moment could be my last.
so my obsession with death serves me after all.
it makes me live very large and brave and wild, and reminds me to love with everything i have.
because i am so intimate with death on a constant basis, i can never close or harden for too long. so every time i get on stage, i sing like i may never sing again. or when i am with a lover, i am so present as if we are the only humans that exist.
because love proves itself to be, again and again,
the most powerful force in the world.
it’s the only thing worth living for after all and here we all are, pretending we’re too cool for school, pretending that love is not why we do everything we do or why we are even on this planet in the first place.
here. we. all. are.
so...in the words of the old slightly cringey but really fucking badass Christian band Switchfoot, “THIS IS YOUR LIFE. ARE YOU WHO YOU WANNA BE?!”
i would add
“...AND ARE YOU LOVING AS BIG YOU COULD BE?!”
one of our cows, Gracie ❤️
ok last thing. do you ever get grossed out when a man who is totally not even close to being on your level looks at you like he would even have a chance? LOL.
some dude with a tattooed face just walked by me and gave me the eye and i actually feel offended that he thinks I WOULD EVER. brb, gonna go sage myself. god i’m an asshole 😂
xx
emma