Chico’s Blog

Part 1

Meet Ann. Ann lives a very quiet life in semi rural Kentucky. Ann always enjoyed writing. Mostly poetry.

Writing was a way to express all those things she wanted to say but couldn’t. Too often emotions were used as weapons. The last thing she needed was her moment of weakness – that second of vulnerability thrown back in her face. Mockery.

As far as ever making a living off writing; everyone and their blue green grandma thinks they can write. What’s the point of putting yourself out there? What’s the point in caring? When 99% of the world is more talented than you? Your grammar sucks. Your sentence structure is appalling.

To pass the time, she would loll away days at local festivals. Table after table was of people trying to sell a book. Art work. Carvings. Proving her point.

She didn’t have the money to self publish. Nor the talent to have an agent.

TRASH! Got filed away under ‘stupid dreams’. You work at a dead end job. You pay your bills. When you sleep, you dream very little about ‘the pie in the sky’. It’s not yours.

During a moment of sadness, she burnt a bunch. No good, no talent garbage. Burn it. Some stuff she couldn’t part with. It was put away in a trunk. Out of sight, out of mind.

One day a friend sparked an idea. Her friend shared a conversation she had with her therapist. She was being encouraged to journal. What an idea! Personally, Ann hated journaling. It was boring. There were other things she wanted to do. After a little research, the idea of blogging appeared. She had never blogged before. There were a range of sites from free to not so free. She chose a free one and got started.

Could her emotional battles help someone else? Or would it be just another social media disaster? And IF she was able to make a little extra money in the process, awesome. But an alternant income stream wasn’t her main objective.

Ann had people in her life that cared about her. The feeling ate at her that; as a person she was loved, but this desire she had to create wasn’t shared. How can you share and expect other people to believe in you when you don’t believe in yourself?

Ann tried other things; painting, drawing. She played with charcoal a couple times. It was super messy but great fun. She always felt that anything she drew was very childish. A 2nd grader could do better.

Chico came to live with Ann when a very close friend of hers got divorced. Her work could be broken into 2 categories: before and after Chico. He became intertwined with a lot of her work. He was the first thing she tried to draw. He was included in many pieces she tried to write.

The one thing Ann hated most was being ignored. She would share a piece with a friend never to hear a word. Then that same friend would say, “you should check this out”. Some days she felt like a yo-yo. Do I share? Who really cares? She knew everyone had full busy lives. It was natural that she prayed they’d have a little more time for her.

In her messed up head, she was very conscientious of ‘word vomit’. It happened once. A cashier asked her once if she was having a good day? She wasn’t and let it fly. Now days when people ask, ‘how are you’? Her answers range from; great to fine as frog hair split 4 ways’. No one cared about the truth.

The 2 books of work that survived the purge were entitled: The Destruction of Me, written before college. And The Reconstruction of Me, written during and after college. New stuff that she had written was collected into a book she was calling Remodeling in Progress.

There were only 3 people in her personal life that she told about the blog. In someways, it has done a world of good for her overall mental health. She knows she will never be able to pay the bills writing but it felt good to share.

There was a chunk of Ann in every piece that she wrote. Someday when all the pieces were finished, the reader would have a complete picture of her.