A couple of days ago I asked a friend to read this blog.  I wanted her opinion of whether anyone would be interested in it and whether she thought I was even a little good at it.   Her response was really interesting and, I thought, worthy of a blog post.

My friend, Alyssa, called to say that she had read a couple of posts and had some constructive criticism for me.  I held my breath, and I am sure she did too, as she told me that she thought it was good and she could see what I was trying to do.  But she also thought that it didn’t sound like me.  She said that she sees me as a person who is fun and has very few boundaries, tending to say what I think in whatever way I want.  She thought my blog posts were more serious than that and didn’t reflect my personality.   She thought they should.

I thought about this for a long time; trying to figure out who the funny, no boundaries girl was.  She seemed a little familiar but that wasn’t really how I saw myself.  Then I realized that Alyssa and I were seeing two different sides of me – two different voices.   One is the voice that I present to people in a social setting.  That voice is very sarcastic, loud, self-deprecating and probably funny.  I have to say that I think the “no boundaries” is also pretty accurate.  But then there is the other me.  The one I know very well and who I think of when I think of my “self”.  This is the voice that worries about everything and everyone.  The voice that is thoughtful, serious, critical, somewhat fearful and definitely unconfident.   I can recognize both of these voices.  I think I always have but never in this definitive way.  It’s almost like being two different people.  One on the inside and one on the outside.  To a certain extent I believe that all of us have at least two sides and most of us have several.   It’s interesting when someone articulates the side of you that you don’t show them by recognizing the side you do.  It’s like understanding something by what is unsaid.  This is what happened to me when Alyssa commented on the blog.   She couldn’t recognize me in my posts because it was a me that she didn’t really ever see.

When I started thinking about writing, I considered my writing voice but I didn’t make a conscious decision to write in a certain way.  I guess it is natural that the voice that showed up was my inner voice.  But there is something much more interesting about this whole conversation.  It connects directly to one of my most important self discoveries (I will probably regret sounding so new age with that one….).  That of “my kitchen table”.  Interesting how that is actually the title of this blog.

A doctor friend of mine once described our psyche in a fantastic way.  At first I thought he was telling me that I am schizophrenic with many strange personalities and would likely need to be immediately hospitalized.  That would be my anxiety talking with a head full of deadly illnesses that are stalking me.  But he quickly said, “No. That’s not it at all.  Instead think of your kitchen table.  There are several versions of you at this table.  Each version is a part of you based on your DNA, your family and your experiences.  Together they make you a whole person.  How boring if it was just one.”   This description really resonated with me.  It might seem simple until you start dissecting each person around the table.  For me, I could immediately visualize the table, the room it was in, what each person was wearing, their facial expressions and how they felt about each other.  It fascinates me every time I think about it.  In fact, I have spent a good amount of time figuring out who all these voices are, how they relate to each other and how they were each “born”.  This has also been a huge part of my wanting to start writing.  Especially this, “My Kitchen Table”!  Funny how it all seems to connect.

Alyssa’s comment on this blog fits perfectly within this theme.  Thank you!  The voices of these various posts definitely come from one or another of the members of the table.  The voice that Alyssa recognized as the typical me is probably the dominant one – the one who shows up to the world first – but was not the voice of the posts she read.  That was a different member of the table and together they all make up the whole of me.

As to my writing voice, I think that I’ll probably be writing with them all.  It won’t be conscious and might depend on the topic.  I guess to get a good picture of my kitchen table and it’s voices, you will have to just keep reading, won’t you!