I think that urge to write publicly comes most often when I feel like I've figured something out or when I've made a decision. When I feel relatively sure of something, I want to say it to the world.
When I go through periods when I'm feeling less sure, I have much less desire to write. One of the things I've been trying to do in the last couple of years, since I moved to NYC, is embrace a beginner's mindset. I want to be new, to have wonder, to know that I have everything to learn and to exist in that somewhat uncomfortable place of not knowing everything.
It's been much harder to write.
I'm going to graduate school in August, which is the start of a different period in my life. It's one in which I'll have a more specific goal, and in which I hope to construct an identity for myself that encompasses more of who I am. I want to still be a sexual deviant, but I suspect that will fade in importance in favor of being a student, scholar, teacher, friend, romantic, and aspiring mother.
I'm also entering a professional atmosphere where it will be important to keep my students from reading everything about my sex life.
I'm planning to start a new blog. I'm not going to link to it from here, but those of you who know me in real life will be able to find it easily. I'm going to migrate all the posts from this blog which have to do with scholarship, culture, feminism, politics, etc. Then I'll delete them here. I'll leave behind the things about my personal life.
I may still blog here, when I have the irresistible urge to declare myself to the universe. It will be separated, though, from my professional life.
I'm hoping that blogging can become an outlet for the learning I'll be doing, for a voice I might not be able to let loose in academia. I'm hoping it'll be a professional tool for networking and making friends. It may still, on this site, be an outlet for a type of expression that's often taboo. That's been less necessary for a while, and I suspect that will continue.
I appreciate everyone who's read and commented here through my sporadic episodes of writing over the years. I think that's all I have to say, for now.