Welcome to my blog! This project has been long in coming, and I have finally decided that it's time to sit down and start actually writing. I'm not yet sure exactly what form this blog will take as it progresses, but it is worth knowing where I'm coming from. I am a fat, white, Jewish (raised in the Conservative movement), queer, mostly-cis woman. The significance of each of these identities has fluctuated in my life; each is on the forefront of my mind at different times, but none is ever irrelevant.
In college, I focused my study in the fields of feminist studies, social psychology, and sociology. I am constantly thinking about pop culture and how representations of all kinds of people affect the individuals in groups and the groups themselves. I am a feminist in that I strongly believe that no identity or group an individual holds or belongs to makes that person less than any others. I take issue with racism, sexism, transphobia, biphobia, homophobia, fatphobia, ablism, and the like. I try to be conscious of what privileges I have and encourage the same from others, and I think that awareness of privilege and oppression allow one to work the system a little and start changes from the inside out.
Both the title of my blog and my posting name are references drawn from the Broadway musical, Next to Normal. The show deals with a family's efforts to cope with mental illness and with grief; these themes speak to me in a lot of ways, some of which I may get into at some point. My name, The Invisible Girl, I will get to in a later post, but I would like to start with a little bit about the title of the blog. The line, "What doesn't kill me doesn't kill me," was chosen because, for me, it reflects a certain level of the very reserved optimism that I tend to maintain in my life. When I say reserved optimism, I mean that I don't assume everything is or can be good, but I do my best to make things okay and make my life livable. The attitude will probably be the way I try approach most of my writing in this blog: as I go through (and have gone through) painful events, they have happened, and as I seen hurt and hatred in the world, they are there. They've not killed me, but that's all; they've not automatically made me stronger--that part's on me. I have to take the next step and process through it, either searching for meaning, looking for solutions, or learned to just let them be. Some of my posts will probably be very personal, and some will probably be about things that I see happening in news and other media. I'll work with and through as much as I can with my writing, and what doesn't kill me, well, doesn't kill me.
So fill me up for just another day.
(and, to take a leaf from a fellow blogger and queer Jew, Questioning Yid, I'll end with a song):
Excited to see you finally blogging! I look forward to reading what you post and discussing it all with you. :)
ReplyDeleteAs we've discussed, the relevance of your title quote (which I also love) is quite different for me. In my life, I have had too many people look at my experiences and tell me, "well, what doesn't kill you makes you stronger," or "its good for you." I can't accept that answer. I don't believe experiences which have created real and palpable damage to my ability to function as a normal human being in social situations is "good for me," or "will make me stronger." Some of these experiences have done little more than put me to the edge of suicide or destroy my ability to trust other people. Am I a stronger person because of my trials and tribulations? Maybe. But who's to say I wouldn't be just as strong a person had I lived a more "normal" life. What doesn't kill me might make me stronger, or it might make me weaker, or it might make me more bitter, angry, or sad. All I can reliably say is that "what doesn't kill me doesn't kill me."
Can't wait for your first topic! Best of luck!!!