After Disaster Preparedness pushed me into a fearful, self-loathing, anxious spiral that lasted enough weeks that I’m shocked to count it a month, after a hideous stomach flu kept me from movement or even productive thought for three days, after feeling like garbage for having personal problems when it feels like the world’s going more and more to hell every day, I feel different. More like an actual adult, which is handy, as I turned twenty-five this year. Maybe it’s because I’m about to hit my two year anniversary in the city. Maybe it’s because I literally dream of IKEA.
Whatever it is, I’m definitely on the other side of something. But this blog definitely lies in that undetermined territory at my back. Last week, I sat down to review Ex Machina, a film I found challenging and fascinating, and instead of feeling like an exciting way to capture my thoughts on the film, it felt like a burden. Not just of exertion, but also of metaphorical weight.
To be honest, the Literary Omnivore has felt that way for a while: like I’ve been consuming media to hit deadlines, instead of consuming media to engage with it, chaining myself to a system I came up with when I was eighteen for the sake of perpetuating it despite radical changes in my life and availability. I realize that sounds absurd, but I rely so much on adhering to self-constructed systems and protocols in order to function properly, let alone optimally, that it takes me a very long time to realize that a.) something is wrong and b.) I have the ability to do something about it. I have immense difficulty standing up for myself, even and especially to myself.
But I know what I have to do about it now. And that’s close up shop.
I’m not going away. The purpose of this blog was always to have a living, breathing journal of my media consumption (starting with books and expanding radically out since then). I’m going to keep doing that in a weekly format at a new blog, The Omnivore’s Almanac. It’ll be real informal, real low stakes: just one post, every Sunday, about what media I’ve been consuming. That gets me what I want without getting me where I don’t need to be.
Feel free to follow me over there. Feel free not to. If you’re reading this, thanks for doing so at any point over the last six and a half years, and have a lovely rest of your day.
All the best,
Clare