Change, Structure, and, Writing

Change is hard for me.

I've never done well with change. It seems I have a difficult time with change because creating structure for my life is extremely difficult for me.  Once I establish a system and create structure for my life, I feel less chaotic if I stick to to my system or structure.  I would like to say it is in my DNA not to conform to structure, but where would I be without the structure of my DNA?

Photo by Sangharsh Lohakare on Unsplash

As I write these words, I realize how conflicted I am over the roles that change and structure play in my life.  

• I need structure and hate change.  

• I love change and hate structure.  

Deep down inside I have always resisted rules, structures, and schedules.  I feel very trapped if I am not free to do what I want to do when I want to do it.  My daily struggle involves one where I’m in constant conflict with myself to resist only going where the spirit leads. On days when I feel inspired to write, the writing flows, but on those days when I don’t feel inspired, writing becomes a slog.

If you read that previous rambling paragraph, you may be saying to yourself, "This girl is really confused.  Does she like change or not?  Does she like structure or not?"  My answer would be, "I truly am confused!  You've got that right.  I am a mess.  I love/hate structure:

• I fight against structure because I feel it confines me.  

• I must have structure to do well.  

• Change scares me.  

• Change is exciting.

• Change allows for me to establish a structure that supports the work I want to do as a writer.

As a teacher, I relied on structure in order to have good classroom management.  When I taught ninth grade English, much of my task was to teach order and structure to my students.  Much of my day consisted of teaching the structure of a sentence, a paragraph, an essay.  Other days, my focus in teaching was on teaching the structure of a story.  

I loved teaching structure to my students.  I insisted that structure was evident in the way my classroom was maintained, and that it was evident in all writing assignments except for journals.

After retirement, I struggled most with structure.  I no longer lived by the bell.  I no longer had to stick to a lesson plan.  I was free to do what I wanted to do when I wanted to do it.  Since I needed a hobby of sorts, and because I love to write, I took up writing on-line by blogging.  

All of that happened fifteen years ago. I had a slow start, but then, I found myself spending at least an hour a day either writing on-line or reading what others were writing.  Blogging connected me to an entirely different life.

In time I learned, change is forever happening in the on-line writing world. That is not a bad thing because I’ve had to learn to keep up with the change that keeps happening all around me when it comes to writing and publishing on-line.

Changes in My On-line Writing World

All of the above can be summed up by me saying:

• Change has happened in my writing world.

• I’ve moved to a new space.

• I’m still learning how to use it, but change is good, and I love the structure Substack provides for on-line writing.

What do I hope to provide readers in this space?

In this space, I hope to provide a place for connection between me as writer and you as a reader.

Writing can be lonely work, especially for me, because I find I write best when I have solitude and silence, yet writing is a wasted exercise for me if what is written does not provide a point of connection. I may need solitude to write, but the last thing I want as the end result of time I spend in writing is isolation.

When I write and when I publish what I write, I do so because I agree with Anne Lamott,

Writing and reading decrease our sense of isolation. They deepen and widen and expand our sense of life: they feed the soul.

I hope you as a reader will find many points of connections in what I write. If you do, I hope you will respond with a comment, an observation, a story of your own. One reason I really like Substack is because its structure gives allows for engagement between reader and writer. I hope you will feel encouraged to connect with me here by commenting if you feel so inclined.

What topics will I write about?

This will be an eclectic space.

I reflect on the many facets of my life: retirement, reading, writing, gardening, faith, parenting adult children, grandchildren, loss, grief, healing from grief, surviving the loss of a loved one by suicide, hair loss, alopecia, aging, and living life at the foot of the Rocky mountains.

In other words, I will write about variety of topics.

Like potpourri, in this place, you will find a mixture of writing on unrelated subjects that I find myself reading about, thinking about, or wishing to discuss with others. (Hint to you the reader: I hope you will enter into the discussion about what I write about.)

Photo by freestocks on Unsplash

Potpourri - A snippet from the past about being open to change and flexibility in my writing life.

Over half a century ago, my father had a secretary who wrote a weekly column for the local newspaper.  Her column named "Potpourri" was a collection of happenings about town.  Some may have even seen her writings as gossip.  Others dreaded seeing her coming down the street because they were afraid they would be fodder for her next column.  

We warned our father never to tell this secretary what we were doing in the family because we hated reading about our life events in the newspaper.  A teenager is sensitive about the entire town knowing when she had a slumber party.  I remember the time I came home from college and brought a girlfriend with me.  Sure enough, it was reported on in the next week’s column in the newspaper.

I do love the idea of the flexibility that such a title gave her column.  She could write about anything with a title like that.  So, today, I am remembering that red-headed secretary my father had so many years ago as I write about what to expect from me in this new format where I will be writing.

If you have not subscribed to my Substack, please consider doing so. I’d love to welcome you to my new writing space.

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