Truth Be Told - Policy Out Loud

Dear Readers,

Ugh. I have done it again. I made a plan for scheduled content, and then life happened and I’m six weeks into a third post in a scheduled series and the post still hasn’t gone up.

Truth be told, I am not a particularly consistent writer.

I want to be, but between the unpredictability of military life, the fickle nature of the year of COVID, and ever-changing nature of living abroad and whiplash with border closures, I often find myself immersed in just trying to keep up with life. That, and this doesn’t pay the bills so I get busy with other projects sporadically.

The other part is that I vacillate between wanting to write to you, and wanting to dig myself deep into a privacy hidey-hole to maintain some shred of anonymity in a world that seems to be posting constantly about the content of their breakfast and the whereabouts of their person.

I often think to myself…why does anyone want to read what I am doing? And more importantly…why should they?

I have now had this blog for just shy of five years, and I still haven’t figured out my balance.

So on that note, here is one of my most recent posts that went up on Facebook where I talk about this a little bit more in depth.

It’s weird.

When I moved to Europe, I had this grand plan to have this super active Facebook page.

To have a knockout travel blog.

I’ve spent years (& a lot of money) building up my platform and readership.

And now, I have all this amazing content to share.

Food. Travel. Philosophical nonsense that gets lost somewhere amongst all the keyboard activism.

On top of that, I have all the time in the world to share it.

But I don’t feel like sharing.

I don’t want to talk about myself. My God, I am such a boring topic.

I’ve thought about it a lot.

Am I depressed?

Am I just sick of keyboard warriors and targeted content with no real show of activism, sweat equity, or value?

Has my suspicions of the matrix just taken precedence over my desire to share?

Is my spirit just overwhelmed and protecting itself with layers of disdain of Fa(k)ebook?

Maybe I’m just tired of idiots telling me what to think.

There are days I’m not quite sure.

I’m tired of being sold to.

And I’m tired of selling myself to you.

Because if there’s anything that this last year in Europe has taught me, is that I want to be the smallest detail on my own blog.

And I don’t know how to sell that in a world where follows and likes are associated with giving more of yourself away…rather than sharing what truly matters.

I want to fade quietly into the bigger picture.

I don’t want to post selfies of myself on piers or mountain tops or eating pirogies.

Because none of that matters.

What matters is the person I’ve become as a consequence of leaving my comfort zone and sitting with people unlike myself and being in awe of the profound world around me and recognizing my smallness and doing the hard work on myself to be better for this world.

But telling that story isn’t telling of myself. It’s telling of all the world I let seep in through my own cracks and my own choices.

That story isn’t told to you when I take a picture of my own likeness and post it with something quippy that earns likes.

It’s told by shrinking into the background.

I want you to see so little of me that I’m almost inconsequential. I want so much more for you to see the land and earth and people, the architecture and history, God and human-kind’s great work.

I want you to see it, so that you too may want to stand up and out of your comfort zone. So that you may recognize your smallness in the bigger picture. Hell, so that you desire for your life to be filled with so much more than yourself. And consequentially, so that you know just how much there is to love, and just how much there is at stake when you choose apathy.

I want you to look at my blog and see a world so vast and wonderful and within our reach and under our stewardship.

I don’t want you to see my face.

Because I should not be what you see.

I should not be what you set your mind to.

I want to fade quietly into the bigger picture.

The story of this world.

One you can love.

One you can fight for.

One that is in your reach and under your care.

The story of this world.

It’s the only story I want to tell you, because it’s the story that gives us all greater meaning.

That’s a more important story to tell…a more worthy story to tell than just my own.

A story that is only my own because I let it in.

Xo,

Taylor Patrice

If you have not yet signed up for the blog, please do so. Posts will now be regularly on the blog, and quite seriously may move exclusively to the blog.

The blog has been quiet (unexpectedly) for a few weeks because (as often happens in the military) we have had a homecoming which distracted me from writing.

& yes, I am indeed in this photo, shrunk somewhere into the smallest details.

Thanks for being consistent readers of an inconsistent writer. For that, I owe you my deepest gratitude.

1 comment

Paula says:

October 14, 2020 at 18:24

You will never be shrunk somewhere…..you are a leader with a brightly glowing personality so, my dear friend you will fight the fights, lead others to their betterment and attract interested individuals to the fight. Embrace you, My Taylor. Love and hugs from that small spot in the middle of the Ozarks.