I didn't ask for your advice

the risk of sharing my life on the internet + when I considered halting these essays

I write essays unpacking our messy baggage. You can hear me read these essays by clicking on the article voiceover. To protect my mental peace, I’ve halted using social media to share my work. Send my words to a friend, if it happens to matter to you today. If you’re new here, you can subscribe to receive my newsletter a couple Fridays a month.

Hello, welcome to this little nook on the Internet.

It is where someone took my own words from these essays, analyzed me, and diagnosed me without talking to me, or seeing me in years, and used it to corner me at a holiday party to give unsolicited advice.

Did you also talk to this person at your festive event? Insert here your strange Uncle Bob or nosy Aunt Nora, who dragged you on a detour away from the merry you could be having at dinner. They figured you all out. They need you to know you must understand exactly how you’re doing your life all so very wrong.

Didn’t they see I was clearly in the middle of laughing at someone’s jokes and nibbling on crunchy Christmas cookies? So why did they find it was a reasonable time to rattle off a full, detailed breakdown of what I should and shouldn’t do when it comes to maneuvering through the fabric of my life?

Come on now. This was not the time or place.

With these essays, I take risks by sharing details of my life.

I choose to be vulnerable with 1,000 or so words of my personal tales and send people an email about it, to readers I know in real life and others I don’t. I have always wondered when or who would come back to bite me for sharing my bold truths. Maybe I asked for it, like a woman wearing a short skirt, asked for it.

While on the drive back home, I considered not writing online anymore.

This was an ugly traffic jam and I received a congestion of unwanted advice. I could fill up with road rage and stay pissed off about how my words were used against me. But I wouldn’t let a little roadblock get to me.

Instead of staying mad, I decided to keep writing.

This interaction had me question something else. I wondered if, I too, give unsolicited guidance. In these essays, I aim to come to you with my own story and my perspective on it. That’s it. You can glean what you want from my true-life bits. My personal may be universal. Maybe you can relate, or not.

If I pushed my advice to you before, I’m sorry. From now on, I won’t tell you what to do merely because it worked for me.

I learn as I go. I learn more as I process and write. And I share it.

I actually love to hear from folks who read my essays. Maybe you have something to share in which you think I could benefit. For me, I prefer a note, a simple phone call, a friendly chat. Share your experience and what worked for you. But I don’t need your intrusive dinner party antics.

I am a believer that, even when you’re right, it’s the delivery of the message that matters.

It’s like serving the perfect meal on a silver platter but chucking it to your guests like a frisbee. No one asked for that.

I am also trying to learn the art of delivery each day, as a mother with a temper working through my emotions and communication skills when my kids frustrate me.

It doesn’t matter what uninvited information was spewed at me. I know how I should be talked to, and this encounter reminded me how I wish to show up for others.

A couple months ago, someone I didn’t interact with often reached out to me. They read one of my essays, it resonated with them, and they asked more about my mental journey. We had text exchanges about stuff that worked for me, what didn’t, the wins and losses of my days. I clarified that I was not trying to push the idea of taking medication, even though that’s what recently worked for me.

Now, we often check in with each other, share our struggles, let each other feel seen. We aren’t trying to fix each other. I’d like to think we are healing each other through healthy conversation, safely sharing our experiences.

And just that.

I’d like to do more of that. No advice — we didn’t ask for — needed.

—

I hope you stay curious as we head into 2025. That’s what I plan to do. BUT I’M NOT TELLING YOU THAT YOU HAVE TO DO THIS, K?! I AM NOT GIVING YOU ADVICE! :)

See you later.