Inside my notebook, a poem in the making, and how A.I. makes me wanna puke
TBH - the internet scares me a little bit right now. I want to protect every thought and piece of work I create. I’m figuring out the balance between what’s for the book(s) vs. the blog.
The cringe part… the hard part… of being online for so long is that the digital footprint is enormous. I never imagined when I started sharing back in 2010/2011 that this is where we’d be. Nobody had done it before us. There was no guidance, courses, or free downloads. Instagram and TikTok weren’t a thing yet … and Facebook *like* pages were admired and respected - which is where I landed.
When the internet began to validate me, my 20-something-year-old self in ways I could never have fathomed, I gave the internet the best of me. Now we have A.I., trolls, and you can buy your way to influence. When I think of all the pieces of this gigantic web that I’ve touched over the years, I wanna throw up. But also it gives me a sense of responsibility to tell a different story - to weave a different web using my acquired experiences.
There is a delicate balance between being someone who shares from the heart and with vulnerability in a public way vs. sharing too much. I wish that I understood the difference in the beginning. I wish we all did. But I was on the front lines like many other millennials and writers of my time - some of us just did the little dance with the doors wide open to the world. Others shared it with friends and people they kinda know on the internet. Some have shared nothing, and I love that for them.
But I think it’s all taken a larger toll on our collective (and individual) identity than we realize.
Now, as we transition to this life of unknown artificial intelligence territory, I just want to protect myself to the best of my ability- my thoughts, ideas, creativity, and everything I hold sacred. BUT I’m alive in 2025 - so I am working to make peace with what the digital age has become & strike a balance with it that works for ME.
These thoughts, in addition to the chaos of what’s happening in the world (and in our country), have had me reevaluating all of it and how I share. Asking myself questions like, “what is it even all for?”
¯\_(ツ)_/¯
What I do know is that if I didn’t write, my brain would explode.
Which is why I’m so thankful that I’ve long been a notebook writer. My notebooks have never felt more safe than they do right now. If you follow me on Instagram, you might be wondering what I’ve been writing.
I’ll tell you more in the *hug zone* where I also want to give you a glimpse into *this* notebook:
One of the many that I have still spread across the bed in my office so they can breathe. I need them out and available right now, so this is what the office looks like -
IN THE HUG ZONE: The makings of my poem Greenlights, including scribbles and rhyming words, the full poem, and a personal note inside this notebook that served as grief balm in the moment.