Why am i scared to write more?

I don't know why. It all goes back to 1995, when i showed my poetry to Prof. Gordon Grigsby and he told me that it wasn't very good. I admired him as a professor and I let his opinion kill something deep within me. This is not a revelation to me. I have accepted it as a fact that Dr. Grigsby killed my love for writing and yet i know i am still *good* at it, but only in a very technical sense. I can writing training manuals and grad school papers with the best of them but when it comes to personal writing that's public, the mirror of my soul has been shattered.

That's something that I haven't totally connected with until now - that blogging is hard for me because it's putting a piece of me out for "critique."

I was thinking about a blog called "my secret blog" or something like that...but of course:
http://mysecretblog.blogspot.com/
http://shhhmysecretblog.blogspot.com/
These are just 2 - and they're defunct...only 4 entries in one of them.

Moving to France: Mr. French leaves in 2.5 weeks

I've found some blogs of other americans and franco-americans in the process of moving to france. None so far with my family's composition. American Mama. French Papa. Franco-American Toddler. But I can still learn things from them and post about things that others aren't posting about. I'm particularly mystified by visas, cartes de sejour and other paperwork that seems pretty straightforward (difficult, but straightforward) for people who have "no intention" of staying in France and haven't been married to a frenchie for 9 years and who don't have a child who is essentially french. I know that a visa is FREE for me and my son, but I can't exactly fathom why my son would even need a visa. Mr. French will investigate while in France. I REALLY don't want to have to go to my "local" consulate in Los Angeles.

French Papa has made a decision which i don't like: he has decided to speak english to bilingual boy until his departure. Why? So that he can progress in his speech therapy. Never mind that he may very well regress when he arrives in france this summer. Well, I just have to do my best in getting his english up to speed so that when we meet again in the fall, he'll still be able to speak english.

It's really happening!

In less than a month, my husband goes to France to establish our new life. I'm having a hard time imagining what this experience will be like. I'm feeling sorta zen about the whole thing. I have accepted the fact that we are doing this. I don't feel giddy. I don't feel stressed. It just is...this is the phase of my life/our lives that we are in right now and I am going to appreciate every moment-savor the taste of life. That means not spending all of my time fantasizing or worrying about what will be.

There is so much in this world to learn and do and I have spent far too much of my life in fear and anxiety; worrying about what is and what will be...and I feel done with that. I know that right now my job is a means to an end. I get paid handsomely and I am learning that I don't need power to be happy. In fact, I am quite happy doing my own thing and not be in charge of other people - but that doesn't mean i have to hate it...it does mean that I can let go of self loathing and anxiety over "not being able to be perfect" - who wants to be perfect anyway?

As I've been reading blogs by expats in France, I have come to discover that I've become french in the 9 years of marriage to Mr. French. ...sexually transmitted? ;-)
What i mean by this is that the things that annoy some expats are some of the reasons that living in France appeals to me. For example - that it's not easy to get things done and that things are expensive. If something is cheap and easy, what value does it have in the long run and how much do I appreciate it a year or so later? As I sort through my things and decide what will go to france, what will be donated and what will be sold, I've come to realize that I've been hanging on to things that have very little meaning to me.

Example: "The road less travelled" : I bought this book in 1995/96 at a used bookstore. I have moved it from Ohio to Illinois, to Albuquerque, from the apartment to the house and I FINALLY sat down to read it last week. It is such a piece of crap I can't stand it and yet I kept forcing myself to continue in the hopes that I could glean something from it, but in the end I tossed it in a box for goodwill. I've already made three trips to goodwill this year and that's just the beginning.

Moving inexorably towards france

French husband has a telephone interview next week. I told my mother and father about it, which made them realize that this is really happening - well, my father didn't know that we were really considering the move until a couple of days ago because he has not had easy access to a phone or internet. He said something that made me reflect on my irrational behavior in regards to "stuff." His first response to my declaration that we would be moving to france was, "what about all of your stuff?" I'm saving stuff for someone else; not for me. I'm saving it for my grandma, my father, potentially for my children and grandchildren...but my grandma is dead. my father will pass away one day and my children and grandchildren don't need to be burdened with a whole house full of stuff. It's nice stuff, but i don't feel like it's mine. I feel like i have to keep it due to guilt, obligation, laziness...

Dad said, "well, it seems that you two move every couple of years so why don't you get a storage place so that you don't have to ship everything over there and then just move it back a few years later." However, if i don't care about it enough to take it with me to france then it's not worth keeping. And my stuff would be here in the us, rotting away, or drying out to be more precise...but it means that it would be even harder to deal with than if i just took care of it now.

Another thought is that we would probably do better to sell the house in early summer instead of late summer/early fall because we are so close to a school and people want to get their stuff together/settled in before the start of the school year. How does this impact our plans? Well, it means I had better "get a move on" ASAP - selling the car is top priority, but I don't want to deal with the hassle. I could trade it in for a lot less than i would get selling it myself...but then we'd be paying off something we no longer own. :-(