I'm A F*cked Up Individual

30-Day Writing Challenge, Day 8

Whoah, I’ve really made it thru the first week of this 30-day writing challenge I embarked on at the beginning of this month. If you’ve never giving blogging a go, you may not understand how difficult a task that seems so simple really is to do.

I know a number of people that have started personal websites, written blogs, video blogs (vlogs/YouTube channels), Instagram blogs, and were NOT consistent. Who said starting was the hardest part of anything? I’ve seen plenty of people start, and only very few continue.

Starting is hard. Being consistent is even harder.

Look, I’m not going to get too big for my britches here, but after having this domain name (aroundLAwithTK.com) for 2 years and 218 days, my first time posting daily for a week straight feels pretty promising. My personal website is sure to be on an upward trend soon, I’m speaking it into existence.

I bought this website so long ago that I forgot how long I’ve been having it. | source: iplocation.net

Consistently posting on the blog has been my sole focus, not Instagram, not Twitter, not Facebook. I haven’t been promoting my work, and as a result, my website pageviews have taken a hit. My month-to-month page views are currently down 41 percent. Yikes! It’s okay though. All of that will come. I’m building a foundation — a foundation of consistency.

Enough about that, let’s get into today’s writing prompt.

[sets 30-minute timer]

Writing Prompt 8: Share something you struggle with.

Mm!

That was the exact noise I made when I opened up the WordPress graphic with the list of 30 writing prompts and saw this one.

Lately, I’ve been doing a lot of introspection, more than usual, especially when I spent 50 hours on an Amtrak train from California to get down South. All of the reflections on my actions and my feelings have brought greater awareness to aspects of myself that I need to put more effort towards improving.

Though 50 hours on a train across the country may sound miserable, it was mentally rewarding. | photo: @aroundLAwithTK

Oh! Before even reading the writing prompt and starting the 30-minute timer, I mentioned one action with which I struggle greatly: consistency. We’ve touched on that enough for today though.

I’m all f*cked up. Where do I even begin?

Hm. Do I want to talk about how I struggle with being vulnerable? Or maybe about how I struggle with building and maintaining close relationships with women (which I think is the result of never having had a close relationship with the one woman most girls grow close to first, a mother)?

No, sex sells. People enjoy talking about sex. Y’all want to know about how I have difficulty being intimate, or don’t feel comfortable being sexual, even though I’m a grown a** woman in her late twenties that believes in the sexual liberation of women?! I don’t even have a sure guess to the root of that problem.

Wait, is my real struggle commitment? Doing all of the aforementioned items I struggle with (being vulnerable, having close relationships with women, engaging in sexual intercourse) would take, or imply, a level of commitment. Am I afraid of commitment? Or, do I not like the idea of commitment?

Some of my personality traits are a struggle themselves.

I struggle to be quiet.

I’m loud. But is that a personality trait or the biological composition of my larynx, tongue and lungs? My voice itself can go to higher volumes and a greater range of tones and pitches than the average person, or at least out of anyone I’ve ever been around and that they’ve been around. Since a little girl, people, starting with my soft-spoken grandmother, have always told me “you’re so loud”, all the way up to now, like my landlord in their half of the duplex below mine when I’ll get to cackling on the telephone. I don’t like that. I want to be cute and quiet and ladylike.

In addition to being literally loud, by way of my larynx, I’m also figuratively loud on issues. I always have something to say about something. And it’s as though I can’t help but to get it out.

“You don’t even have to speak on that.”

Oh, but I do.

I can’t help it.

I’m trying to help it.

Unfortunately, IDGAF who is around, who has a problem, to whom I’m speaking, no matter their title, status, nor power, I’m going to speak WTF I feel.

Te’Keya Krystal is going to say what Te’Keya Krystal wants to say.

That’s terrible. And I know this, yet it’s a struggle not be this way.

It’s wild because with maturity I’ve learned that I don’t need to speak on everything, and I understand that; it’s just so darn hard not to. Majority of the time, something has flown out of my mouth before it even spins around in my head for the thought “maybe I shouldn’t say this” to come to my mind. Now I see what my grandmother meant by “you don’t have no filter, little girl” and her constant warnings to watch my mouth and think about what I say before I say it. You would think that after getting popped in the mouth multiple times a day from the time I learned my first words to moving off to college that I’d have learned how to be quiet. [sigh] I haven’t.

I’ll bring the rest to my therapist… when I get one.

The writing prompt said to share something (singular) that you struggle with, not some things.

The idea, when I first decided to do this 30-day writing challenge, was to write for 30 minutes each day, for 30 consecutive days, on each writing prompt. This was supposed to be somewhat of a daily kickstarter or closer to build a habit and make sure I’m posting on my personal blog website. I was thinking I’d spend other segments of my workdays building my SEO, writing response posts (to contribute to SEO), and most important to instant gratification, start expanding ways to make money NOW as a freelance writer (because it’ll take a while before my personal blog website can pay my rent).

Child, I’m going to get it together, and when I do, I look back at my struggle posts and smile.

People don’t care about your story until you make it.

Don’t you worry, I’M GON’ MAKE IT!

I’m aware that if I put on a facade, that I could easily put on, by living in Los Angeles and frequenting the exclusive environments I frequent, I’d already have a greater following. Especially by my fellow millennials and the Gen Z’ers right behind us, in this faux rich society greatly pushed by social media, they’d eat up me having “made it”. But I haven’t, and it’s important to me to be transparent about that, to show this part, even though people don’t want to see it.

Fantasy is what people want. Reality is what they need.

I’m going to keep giving you all my reality. Thank you for riding with me, riders.

Please, share this post with someone today. You will help me quite a bit.

(And yeah, I said I’m not doing promotion right now, so I don’t plan to send an email blast anytime soon, but go’on ‘head and enter your email address below for ya girl for when I do!)