The uncomfortable silence

After you share too much.

Last week, I shared what I thought might be one of my most vulnerable posts. Usually, when I publish something like this, there’s some kind of response. Likes, comments, even just a sense that it landed somewhere.

This time, it was crickets. Online at least.

I promoted it in all the usual places. Still, very little engagement. I found myself wondering if the silence meant something deeper. Judgment. Pity. Disgust. My mind can go to some far-out places.

I do know the piece prompted some concern. My sister texted right after I hit publish to check on me. And when I called my mom later that day, she told me, unprompted, that she had read the piece and understood my husband’s position. And then: she wished she had taken better care of her health when she was younger.

For the record, I didn’t stop caring about my health when I quit dieting. That decision, and the many months of therapeutic work I did afterwards (and continue to do) to undo the damage from dieting, have helped me greatly improve my mental health. I just happened to gain weight.

I have heard from my husband, who is at a “weight loss retreat and wellness resort.” On our call last night, he mentioned something in passing that hit me the wrong way.

I got angry. I hate that our default social systems make someone who is strong, capable, and physically active still feel like they need to shrink themselves to be accepted.

Why can’t we just live in.a world where a woman can be fit and fat and not feel like she has to do something about it?

This was the thought I had. My husband followed it up with, you just really can’t tell someone’s fitness by their appearance. As if it was something he’s never thought about. Ummm. Don’t we already know this firsthand? Also: isn’t this exactly what I’ve been writing about for years?

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I’ve been thinking a lot about honesty in writing lately.

Over drinks this week, I told two of the friends I made at my Maine writing retreat (thank god, and Lyz Lenz, for these women!) that I was too scared to drop any of my recent writing into our shared Google drive. Even though I post here every week.

Sometimes it’s easier to tell strangers your deepest thoughts than it is to share them with people you’re close to. Even sharing with strangers can be agonizing. And make you question your life choices and what is so wrong with you that you feel the need to share your personal thoughts and feelings with the whole wide world.

I also admitted that every few months, I publish something here on Substack that makes me so uncomfortable that I wake up at 3 a.m. convinced I need to delete it. That’s where I've been with last week’s piece.

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Reading Lindy West’s memoir a few weeks ago, along with the debate online about whether she was deluding herself in her decision to embrace polyamory, and therefore not being honest with herself (or us!) in her writing, I found myself thinking this: what happens inside a marriage is always open to interpretation from the outside, often incorrectly. We just don’t really know.

Also, in the case of writers, there can be a wide gap between what we choose to write about and what’s actually happening behind the scenes. Much of the backlash from Adult Braces seemed to come from that gap. West had built a body of empowered, feminist writing, and then revealed a far more complicated personal life that included agreeing to an ultimatum she hoped would never pass, discovering her husband’s “sort of illegal” girlfriend (her words), and eventually joining a throuple. All very sus, as my youngest would say.

From the writing craft perspective, what stuck with me was how sharp the details were. It reminded me that I should be journaling … but honestly. About real things happening in my life. In real time.

I say this because when I read Tara Westover’s Educated, I was working on my own memoir (still working on it, by the way), and I was so impressed that she’d not only kept but included snippets from her childhood journals.

I remember thinking: I really wish I had written journals. I was spending so much time trying to piece together my major life events, especially the bad ones I had blocked out.

But then I had another thought: I actually did write journals … for most high school and college ... in fact, I still have them! Off to the garage I went in search of said journals, convinced they would be my salvation, only to discover they were filled with vague feelings and almost no concrete details.

There were gaps. Big ones. Especially around the years abuse happened. Instead of writing about the bad stuff, I wrote about my big plans and hopes for the future. Escape routes.

Calling it dishonest isn’t fair. I was just writing about what I hoped would happen one day instead of what was actually happening.

I didn’t dare write honestly during my first marriage either. I don’t think I could have handled writing the truth. And I wouldn’t have wanted my then-husband to read it.

It wasn’t just a room of one’s own that Virginia Woolf was advocating for. It was a space safe enough to tell the truth.

I’m still working on that.

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After writing the first draft of last week’s piece, I wondered if it was too heavy. If I should have added more levity. And maybe that’s part of the issue. There was levity in the headline, but I had come up with that months before I wrote the piece or even knew this thing was actually going to happen (yes, this is how my former newspaper copy editor brain works).

When I wrote the piece, it was heavy. So I tried to add some lightness. Or at least moments of relief. Then I leaned in with the photo.

My husband went to fat camp, and all I got was this lousy T-shirt*

But maybe it didn’t translate. Maybe it made it worse. Because maybe it read as me trying to put a bow on something that wasn’t meant to be pretty. Or easy. Or even fully understood.

There is so much complexity to these questions about body autonomy, and so much that resists neat conclusions.

Prioritize your health, but not to the point of obsession. Care about your appearance, but don’t let it define you. Accept your aging body, but do the things that will protect it. Love yourself just as you are, but still try to improve.

It’s no wonder we don’t know what to do with ourselves. And then navigate all of that in relationship with someone else who doesn’t feel exactly the same way you do.

It’s a lot. Especially in these times, when things already feel heavy.

I know some people cope by tuning it all out. I’m not one of those people, and I don’t want to be. But I also understand that people need to take care of themselves … however they see fit.

So maybe this week is just this: a few scattered thoughts, no clear conclusion.

If you’ve ever felt this kind of silence after sharing something hard, or wrestled with these contradictions, I’d be curious to hear from you.

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If you’re in the mood for something lighter, this piece has been finding its way to new readers …