Indecisiveness is a Bitch

Paris
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Today I had an epiphany in a grocery store. Am I a Southern woman or am I a Southern woman?

To tell this story, I’ll have to back up a bit. These last few week have been a tumultuous roller coaster for me.

After a month of backpacking, I returned to my apartment in Paris for only 3 days before departing for Northern California to celebrate the wedding of my closest person and her soulmate. I spent a week in Northern California and now I’m currently sitting at a wonderful little haunt in Montmartre.

I won’t bore you with the details of my recent past, but I will say it has been one hell of a ride. My insides were all over the place. And at the end of this vague time period, I was one month out from starting this blog and am now 0 days shy of writing a business plan for my own startup. (‘Bout time, turns out I’m a beast at helping other people’s dreams come true, might as well start working on my own.)

Short-hand recent past inner-monologue: Do I want to continue writing on a blog that’s titled in a way that pigeon-holes me? What if I settle in one place for longer? Does that mean I'm no longer traveling "'round the world?" Shouldn’t I just write under my own name if my goal is to present my authentic self? Should I move back to California? I feel at home there. So many of my loves are there. But I need to be in San Francisco. That’s where all the start-ups are. Paris is too settled in its ways. No one is innovating there. People just walk around and drink coffee and wine. They aren’t hustlers. I need hustlers. San Francisco has hustlers. But I couldn’t be there full time. It would be too much. So maybe LA? But I don’t want to be there full time. Same problem. Too many loafers and schmoozers. Now that I’m back in Paris, I don’t care why these people are slow. They have all the croissants and all the champagne. I’m never leaving this place.

Needless to say, I get caught in my indecisiveness a lot. It bogs me down like a pig in 10 feet of mud. Good god it’s exhausting.

Then last night, post-nearly 18 hours of international travel, a dear friend of mine sent me a text telling me to check my e-mail. I love surprises.

He had sent me an article titled “What happens when you take full responsibility of your life.” Click the link to give it a read.

I have struggled with indecisiveness my entire life. Despite lots of self work, I still struggle with it and I might as well accept that I always will. But constant work on my self has sometimes allowed me to dig deeper and figure out what’s really going on.

Prior to reading this article, I once told someone that my indecisiveness presents itself in its most monstrous form AFTER I’ve made a decision. I will choose what I want for myself, but what follows is a period of second-guessing and self-doubt and fear of failure and fear of making a mistake. My authentic self chooses something and then my “dark side” (what I like to call it) says OH NO I DON’T THINK SO.

Per the article, I realized that what really lurks in my brain is a fear of commitment for a multitude of reasons. That dark side is a tricky mother fucker.

That paragraph up there? The one with all the concerns and worries and shoulds and should nots? Yeah. Fuck that. Fuck all that noise. The logistics don’t matter. This is what my authentic self has chosen as of this moment and I want to publicly make a commitment to myself right here. I commit to:

Writing

Building a supportive community for women

Traveling

Staying healthy / self-care

Connection

Creating a home wherever I am

See: grocery store epiphany. These commitments to myself don’t exist in a place or in other people or in a blog title. They exist in me. All the worries I listed above were, in a sense, asking for outside sources to love me back. I wanted Paris to embrace me and shift to my needs. I wanted different parts of California to embrace me and shift to my needs. I wanted my blog or my business venture to give me validation for the kind of life I want to live. In letting the indecisiveness and self-doubt take over, I looked everywhere outside my self for ANY KIND OF ANSWER. Because let’s face it, that dark side bitch wants to ruin my life.

But just like a relationship with any person, trying to force it to change to your own will taints it. You are no longer truly giving love to the authentic Paris or Los Angeles or San Francisco if you ask it to change for you. And trying to change myself to fit into a place or blog title taints my own authentic self. No matter where I am I'll always miss somewhere else. And if I were just writing under “Tanna Key” it wouldn’t give the site space to grow. I want other Southern voices up in here.

I vow to commit to the things I’ve listed above. And the list will grow longer. And I will change my mind all the time when it comes to logistics, but the core truths of my soul will remain constant. And through true consistency I will nurture my authentic self and foster my own validation of my own self worth that has existed within me all along.

Cheers, y’all. I need to finish my champagne. 

 

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Backdrops 🙌🏼
Malibu couldn't be more of a dream come true. Thank you for all you've given me so far: inspiration, love, hope, spark, motivation, and stillness. Thank you for everything that is yet to come. My heart belongs to you. #malibu #california #malibumorni
As soon as I land here, my body drinks up the moisture and my skin and heart are revived. My body knows it was born and bred here. Traveling the world has made me so grateful for my home. Shout out to my Dad's '90s truck that still runs like new and
En route to Denver ⛰ #southernbelle #nomad #roadtrip
Nothing like day drinking in a tiny town. Helllllo, Durango 🦌
Dandelion wishes 💫

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“You Don’t Look Like You’re Backpacking” and Other Sexist Shit I Hear While Backpacking

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“You don’t look like you’re backpacking.”

For Tower Bridge's 7th edition of Art at the Bridge, 15 women were selected to display their art in honor of International Women's Day. Click the picture for a link to a few outtakes. 

For Tower Bridge's 7th edition of Art at the Bridge, 15 women were selected to display their art in honor of International Women's Day. Click the picture for a link to a few outtakes. 

I have gotten this most often, typically when wearing a dress. Fine, I get it, I’m not literally living out of a backpack with a tent and sleeping in the forest every night. I am, however, living out of a backpack for months on end.

I am lucky enough that the smallest piece of socially acceptable clothing I can wear on the street is a dress. Women are winning at something, eh? 

Naturally, I pack mostly dresses in the summer because they keep my bag light, my body cool, and they’re a breeze to wash.

The fact that I’ve now taken 3 minutes out of my day to explain how and why I backpack wearing dresses is beyond me.

 

“You’re traveling alone?” 

Sometimes this is said out of worry, but I don’t hear many solo male travelers tell me almost everyone they know has expressed concern for them being by their lonesome.

This comment carries doubt in my ability to take care of myself. With my safety level as a lone female traveler shifting depending on my location, I do understand and appreciate it in certain contexts. But like, a woman can chill totally fine on her own in London for god’s sake.  

 

“Do you have a boyfriend?”

This question and its inherent sexism has been thoroughly recorded in recent media thought catalogs, yay! To those who genuinely ask this question because you are interested in someone and you GOTTA KNOW RIGHT NOW if you can ride off into the sunset to “Thinking Out Loud,” I get it. But even still, you could both have this feeling and be otherwise committed. HUMAN BEINGS DO NOT OWN OTHER HUMAN BEINGS.  

As a backpacker, I notice the underlying sentiment of “another man owning a woman means she’s off limits” takes on even deeper meanings.

They ask, where’s your boyfriend? As if he must be around here somewhere because a woman cannot travel without a man.

They ask, do you have a boyfriend at home? As if the person who “owns” me is so far away that I might go outside my relationship sentence either to lend a hand in playing out their affair fantasy or let them lend me a hand in my assumed lonely sex life because I have no body property owner near by. 

 

“Oh yeah? I think you’re just trying to get a dick trophy in every country.”

Yes, my only purpose in life as a woman is to proudly and intentionally collect as many penises as I can with my vagina that inherently belongs to the men attached to those penises (and then turn around and be shamed for the number of ones I've had). This one takes the cake and the icing all in one giant bite.

I have done many forgiveness exercises for this man. When I recall this moment now, it evokes deep sadness and compassion for those whose superiority has cut off their true connection with the world. In one sentence, he effectively invalidated my love of travel, my love of culture, my gratitude for my body, my ownership of my body, the bodies of those I've been trusted to touch, and my voice, and he said it as if he were hungover making Sunday brunch plans.

 

Afterthoughts for the Unconsciously Misinformed (NOT the Dangerous)

I conclude by saying this: I am a bad feminist. I’ve gladly accepted men (and women!) buying me drinks and dinners and inviting me on boats and into homes. I’ve chosen to look at these offerings as humanistic rather than sexist, and I honestly don’t know which ones were which. I don’t want to take life too seriously and see no reason to berate a man or woman about whether they’re trying to flirt with me or simply be kind to me; this solves nothing.

In all the instances above except the final, I have continued talking to whomever made these comments. Like I said, I am a bad feminist, but I also have intentions in continuing these conversations.

I grew up in the Southern United States, which, despite best efforts by some, still has heavy, stubborn dregs of racism. Some of the side effects of this upbringing include genuinely unconscious racism. For example, looking at a painting of a hazy cotton field in rural Georgia passed down from my ancestors, I thought it was beautiful. It took someone with enough openness and kindness to explain to me that it was a boastful painting of a slaver owners’ possessions working in the fields.

What will make this world a better place? Connection. Choosing to set aside assumptions about someone's authentic nature based on simple comments, however hurtful. Instead of condemning and fighting and creating opposites of genders and/or sexualities, I try to be patient and kind. I try to connect.

A brilliant night in Brussels, Belgium.

A brilliant night in Brussels, Belgium.

I do not fight fire with fire. If I feel I am fully physically, mentally, and emotionally safe (crucial), I fight it with a giant ass fire hose. And when I do, something magical happens. We connect. We both cool down, I from my anger and the other from their pre-dispositions. My actions, ever so slightly, change the way they view me, and I secretly hope this revolutionary idea of equality begins to carve out new neural pathways.

This in no way applies to the dangerous and/or predatorial. In this case, I fight fire with silently running as far and fast away as I can. Full mental, physical, and emotional safety for myself always comes first. They are welcome to burn in the house they set on fire if they so choose. 

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Backdrops 🙌🏼
Malibu couldn't be more of a dream come true. Thank you for all you've given me so far: inspiration, love, hope, spark, motivation, and stillness. Thank you for everything that is yet to come. My heart belongs to you. #malibu #california #malibumorni
As soon as I land here, my body drinks up the moisture and my skin and heart are revived. My body knows it was born and bred here. Traveling the world has made me so grateful for my home. Shout out to my Dad's '90s truck that still runs like new and
En route to Denver ⛰ #southernbelle #nomad #roadtrip
Nothing like day drinking in a tiny town. Helllllo, Durango 🦌
Dandelion wishes 💫

TWITTER

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