Walking Contradictions
The writings of a chaotic person
It’s been a month since I’ve sat down to write this newsletter. To be fair, I have tried (and failed) a few times to produce something, to squeeze the words out of my brain, my fingers, my very pores. But alas, no amount of force has produced, well, anything.
Even now, as I sit outside beneath the comforting folds of my woolen blanket, I am at battle with myself. Should I write this newsletter or should I curl into the safety of myself and read the book that I picked up in Asheville just a few days ago?
Obviously, this letter has won out, but still the tug towards my book and personal shell lingers.
This past month has been a lesson in chaos and contradiction for me, of more questions than answers rattling around inside my head like loose marbles on a hardwood floor. Originally, I had set out to write about the questions that have been plaguing me with regards to this very newsletter, questions that tend to pop up time and again, usually right around the start of my cycle when I feel most vulnerable. This month, my cycle gave me a heavy dose of altered-perceptions-of-my-very-self which was super fun, let me tell you. This state of mind left me with questions like:
Should I focus my writing on one thing or is it ok that I approach this newsletter like a personal diary of sorts, spilling whatever happens to be on my mind?
Is writing twice a week too little? Too much?
Does it aid me in my creative process or does it hinder me?
Do I even have something worthy enough to say? To be read and digested and chewed over?
Do people miss me when I don’t show up in their inboxes or is it a welcome relief that I am absent?
What would it feel like to not have a schedule set in stone of delivering this newsletter, of writing? Would it feel chaotic and add to my stress, or would it alleviate the pressure I put on myself to constantly show up?
Then came the retreat in Asheville. Something I had been looking forward to since the very start of the year but which happened to fall right at the beginning of menstruation. Literally, the day before I was set to drive the 3.25 hours to Skyland Camp it appeared. *Cue Fireworks*
Which might explain the contradictory feelings and internalized questions I drove home with exactly 6 days later. I literally had so much on my mind that I did something I normally never do: I recorded my thoughts via voice memo so that they would’t slip away into the ether.
Now, before I share the thoughts that accompanied me on my ride home, I just want to say that my time at Skyland was absolutely beautiful. The food was delectable and diverse and accommodating to everyone’s dietary restrictions (GF + DF over here!), the staff was comprised of some of the loveliest humans I have ever known, the students were brilliant and funny and a joy to work with, and I fell asleep every evening in a bed that felt like clouds set out on a covered porch overlooking the mountains, oftentimes to the sound of rain pitter-pattering on the roof. The entire event was organized by Leigh, the owner of Topstitch Studio & Lounge who is someone I have worked with since 2017 and one of the kindest, most thoughtful people I’ve ever had the privilege of meeting and befriending.
It truly was another year of incredible experiences and memories captured. All of the contradictory feelings I drove home with were honestly more a result of my own sense of self as well as an opening of wounds (both physical and emotional) that I just wasn’t prepared for. Here is a snippet of what I thought about while driving home on Sunday:
There are so many emotions I cannot seem to name swirling around me as I drive. I am baffled that I can somehow feel both insecure and empowered after this week in the mountains. Being surrounded by so many amazing women has left me wondering if I even belong amongst them. Do they like me? Am I good enough compared to each of them?
This feeling swishes around my heart while at the same time my bones seem to strengthen from the empowerment I gained while teaching my natural dyeing class. I hardly ever feel so confident teaching classes, even when I know that I have the skills to do so. But for this class, I felt extra prepared and passionate and lively. I felt 100% secure in everything I was talking about and excited to pass that knowledge to my students and see their faces light up when they unraveled their various projects. There were so many beautiful moments to savor.
But when outside of class, I was very nervous. The social aspect of camp had me questioning if I was talking too much, if I was talking about myself in a way that was off-putting by making it all me, me, me. I found myself wanting to be more like the women surrounding me.
Self-assured, confident, at peace with themselves.
Of course, this was just my perception of them. For all I know, they could have been going through the same inner turmoil as I was, feeling out of place, unsure of what to do or say. But it didn’t feel that way. There were two in particular that just radiated a sense of assurance that I find to be incredibly rare and beautiful.
I also cried so much this weekend. I sliced my finger open on a razor (the physical wound) and it really really scared me (the razor cut much deeper than I originally thought). The cut led to an outpouring of unconditional love and care and support from the group as well as a hefty dose of motherly attention which unleashed a flood of tears as I connected this feeling to the feelings I have for my own mother and our current lack of contact. Something I initiated last year. This led me to sit with the feelings bubbling up and out of me and question whether I miss my mother or not.
And the hard truth is that I don’t miss her.
I don’t miss her, but I do miss the motherly affection, and this all leads me to wonder… does my mom think that I hate her? I once had my therapist suggest to me that I hated my mother (an affronting suggestion in the moment), and I sat with that idea for a very long time. It was deeply uncomfortable to consider this possibility, that I might hate my own mother, but in the end, I don’t believe it to be my truth. I don’t hate my mother. I really don’t. I love and care about her and really want her to be happy and fulfilled.
But I do have a lot of anger towards how I was raised that I have been working through as it arises. There is anger but there is also understanding. I know that my mom did the best that she could with the tools that she had at the time that she raised me. In the end, it just wasn’t enough for what I needed as a child. And as a result, I often look back at my childhood and feel a lingering sense of loneliness, a heavy feeling of not belonging which has persisted into adulthood. From my mother’s perspective, she likely saw an incredibly introverted and sensitive child who spent a lot of time in her room. But from my perspective, looking back on that time of my life, I wonder if I kept to myself so much because I just couldn’t deal with the chaos I felt swirling around me.
And all these contradictory feelings surrounding my mother have the tendency to make me doubt myself and my decision to cease contact with her. I often find myself wondering if I was too harsh, if I didn’t try hard enough to repair our relationship.
At what point is it the child’s responsibility to repair a relationship vs. the parent’s? Am I actually a terrible daughter? Was I the cause of all our issues? Or was I merely a child doing normal child things, but made to feel like I should have known better/ done better/ been better? Is this why I have such a lack of trust in myself/ who I am now? Will I ever truly know the answer to any of these questions?
I swing wildly from remembering only the bad back to remembering only the good, giving myself emotional whiplash. I haven’t yet settled into the middle of my memories, where I hold the good and bad in tandem with one another.
The one thing that keeps me from falling back on my decision is the answer to one question, posed by my best friend a long time ago: Do you miss your mom?
I ask this question of myself most often when I am struggling and the answer, time and again, has been no. Just as it was on my car ride home. I don’t miss seeing her, I don’t miss the times we spent together because all of them were fraught with anxiety, a feeling that I was walking on eggshells, of me constantly monitoring her emotions and anticipating her needs so much that I couldn’t hear what it was I most needed or wanted at any given moment. My job had become her, making sure that she was alright and happy and comfortable. And I don’t know where the blame lies for our relationship becoming that way, if there is any blame to even assign. All I know is that our relationship as it was was unsustainable for me.
All of which leads me right back to the question of:
Does anyone even care to hear this? Should I have kept this to myself seeing as I have hardly ever mentioned my lack-of-parental relationships (I ceased contact with my father at the same time as my mother even though they have been divorced since I was 2. Ending the relationship with my father has been much easier to take in stride as we hardly had one to begin with)? Is that too personal a thing to have shared?
Today, I obviously have more questions than answers. I feel a great Wintering1 coming over me in which I want to retreat fully into myself. I want to shut all the doors, shutter all the windows, and curl into bed for as long as it takes for me to find my way back to myself.
I actually caught a glimpse of her while in Asheville. It happened during a sound bath facilitated by the camp. I’d taken a teeny-tiny gummy prior which just opened the entire experience up, the vibrations of the bowls running through my body especially along my arms which felt open and as if water were flowing down and around them. Behind my closed eyes, I glimpsed the true version of myself, standing below in the open parking lot of the camp, surrounded by trees. She had long graying hair in luschious curls, the wind rippling around her hauntingly. She wore a loose-fitting, flowing dress with a plethora of tattoos up one of her arms. She seemed to belong entirely to this moment, 100% at peace with herself and the ways of the world, the way in which her life had unfolded. She carried no doubt with her. Saddness, yes. Happiness, too. But no doubt.
I wonder if I will ever find my way to being her. I don’t want to make that into my one and only goal, however. It’d be lovely to be like her one day, but I am in the process of learning how to accept myself as I am right now, even the parts I most loathe, while also working towards bettering myself. It’s a difficult thing to do, to love who you are but also work towards change. It’s not something that comes naturally to me nor does it often sound like a logical thing. If I loved myself, wouldn’t I be ok with never changing? Wouldn’t I stop trying to “improve” if I fully accepted who I am?
But I know that if it is perfectly acceptable to feel gratitude for what you have in the here and now while also reaching for more or a change in the future, then surely I can hold all the contradictions I find within myself. There must be enough space, enough reason, to do so.
Currently Reading
I just finished Chocolat by Joanne Harris. I found a used copy at the thrift store recently and being that my editor said it was a great comp title for my novel A Daisy in Lily’s Valley, I felt I absolutely needed to read it at least once as I’d only ever seen to movie. If I am being honest, I am still not sure how I feel about it, either the book or the movie. The writing style of the book was beautiful but often confusing. I found myself re-reading passages over and over again before the timelines made sense as the author fluidly moved between past and present, blurring the lines of both. I also felt that the ending left me wanting. The priest embarrassed himself, but was that enough of a punishment for what he had done in his youth? If nothing else, this story has settled inside of me and is giving me a lot of mull over.
I was going to begin The Echo of Old Books by Barbara Davis. My neighbor lent me her copy and I was all set to dive in, but an unfortunate almost-accident on the drive to Asheville rendered it a sodden mess when the natural dyes I was transporting flew through my car, completely soaking her copy. It is still readable, but the guilt of ruining the book has left me unable to pick it up just yet.
Instead, I have turned to The Starless Sea by Erin Morgenstern and already I know this is going to be a favorite. It is one of those stories that has so many layers that you can feel itching beneath the surface of the words, it nearly shimmers on the page. I feel lost and confused and my mind in a spin but that is more because I know, just know, there is a nuance to each line that I am not fully grasping. So, I have taken up my highlighter and begun marking the lines that feel deeper than my mind can currently grasp. I cannot wait to see how this story within a nested set of stories within a larger, overarching story comes together, if at all.
Currently Working On
All of August and half of September I have been singularly focused on preparing for my week teaching in Asheville. Now, it is time for a big rest. I do have a market coming up in October that I need to prepare for, but I am removing some of the oppressive expectations I had heaped on to myself and turning towards a more come what may attitude. It is officially fall, after all, and in these cooling months, I find myself slowing down to match the pace of nature as best I can.
One thing I do expect I will be working on soon is the first draft of my next book. So much has been coming together more quickly for the storyline lately. New scenes pop into my head and I have to run to write them down in my *very long* note’s app. Feelings sweep through me that I hope to capture with great nuance on the page. Willow the typewriter is calling out to me to set up a dedicated space in which to write with a dedicated ritual to accompany that sacred time. The story is ready to simply flow.
Also, I am super excited to be taking
’s course “How Much Money is Enough” at the end of this month/ start of October. This is a question I have been struggling with the entire time I have been a small business owner and One I have been seriously grappling with for the past year or so. I am super excited to be able to have the space to explore these questions with someone who has also grappled with them and found light on the other side, even if the answer is constantly changing.
Thanks for being here with me as I work through some of these questions and the general chaos of my own mind. I appreciate our time spent together.
Until next time,
xoxo B.A. Franc
Wintering is a term I first discovered being used by Kathrine May, the author of the book Wintering. She used it to describe those moments when you retreat from the world and become introspective. Wintering can happen at anytime of the year, even in summer, and can last as long as you/ your body needs. I, myself, have wintered for several years at the longest and several days at the shortest.
I relate to so much of what you are struggling with, and have similar issues with my parents - I’d highly recommend the Adult Children of Emotionally Immature Parents book series by Lindsay Gibson. I’ve found them to be very helpful xx