I Have a Reader in Ireland!

 And I would like to know more about them.

Me being me, I have built up a huge fantasy about this person, who (in my head) is fictional.

So I think today I will tell you about them. 

Or at least the version of them that exists in my head.

Then maybe they will reveal themselves and marvel in my accuracy.

Or, probably more truer to life, they will let me know how far off they are and then immediately stop reading. 

Those are the only two reactions my brain can come up with at the moment. 

But this is just a small example of how hard my brain goes 100% of the time. 

My reader in Ireland is most likely named Aisling and they are sturdy with an open, friendly face. 

Their hair is definitely curly and they are the mom friend of the group.

You know, the soft person people go to when they wanna feel like they're at home? That person. 

And they, also, have read every single word Maeve Binchy has ever written and get the same warm feeling I get every time I read one of these familiar Irish stories. 

Oh shit, I just realized, I am describing my favorite character from all of Maeve Binchy's books. 

Someone who's curious about the world instead of closed off and scared.

Someone open to new experiences, people and tastes. 

Basically someone I would like to be friends with. 

This entire imaginary person lives in my brain now. Why? Because I noticed that I have a daily visitor to the blog who lives in Ireland. 

Yes, I obsessively look at my stats.

But, what's different now... is that I don't care. 

I don't care if one blog does better than another - it's not gonna effect (or affect, my brain can NEVER get that right) what I'm gonna write about.

I'm writing this for me, so it's gonna just be what the fuck ever pops into my brain on whatever day I'm writing it. 

I do, however, find the pattern recognition within the stats to be endlessly fascinating. 

I love watching my positive posts catch up with the readership of my negative posts. 

That makes me feel like, where previously y'all wanted to wallow, now you wanna celebrate too. 

Or that you need a pick me up and I'm happy to be able to do that. 

But before, the slightest dip or deviance (never with this blog, but with previous professional projects) would spiral me out, causing me to question every decision I made that might have possibly led me astray. 

And then I'd pivot accordingly. Without letting my last unnecessary pivot have even a chance of working. 

Now, though? I'm writing what makes me happy or is on my brain that day or a silly little story that happened to me or whatever. 

Literally, whatever. It doesn't matter to me right now. I have been having so much fun just writing every day... with no expectation or pressure. 

Middle school me would be so happy. 

We talked about that in therapy yesterday - It feels like I'm coming back to all the things I loved in middle school that I let myself be talked out of because they weren't "adult" or some other nonsensical reason. 

I'm arting. 

I'm writing. 

I'm singing. 

I'm watching TV and talking about it as much as I damn want. Movies, too. 

I'm reading the same books over and over again and not being ashamed about referencing them all the time. I do, like, preface it every time by saying, "I know I keep referencing this a lot right now, but this is scarily close to this thing that happened in "The Every" - which, in case you forgot, is the future one so that's extra scary!"

I'm just being and not listening to all of these dumb rules I'd built up in my head based on things told me not to do because they were too______.

I'm just accepted it. And me. 

I'm Too. 

(I feel that that should be more poetic or clever, but my brain can't do those mental gymnastics right now.)