I don’t go looking for shit people say about me online. I am under no illusion that I’m everyone’s fav. I don’t like calling attention to negative feedback.
But I need to talk about Linda tonight for a couple reasons. She left this comment on my last post about my impending divorce.
Comment reads: “Yeah….it probably didn’t work out because you’re all over the place. Let’s live in an RV!! Let’s settle down now! Now I want my own apartment! It makes me roll my eyes that you charge people $40 to chat with you on zoom. You’re exhausting.”
And damn, this feels good, and like old blogging, like when I would get really fired up about something totally fucking dumb and pound out a blog post in 5 minutes. I have missed this feeling, muse Linda!
Anyway, I want to take a few minutes to address this idea that I’m exhausting. That sharing my story has been, what, too dramatic? Too… imperfect? Too much? Let’s go with too much.
Readers, how many times, as a woman, have you been made to feel like you’re too much? Your emotions are too much. Your laugh is too much. Your tears are too much. You move too much. You dream too much. You complain too much. You share too much. You talk too much. You care too much. Too much. Tooooooomuch.
You know what I’m fucking over, Linda? I’m over people thinking that I or any other woman would or should give a solitary fuck about how exhausting or too much they find us. I’m over the idea that it’s totally ok to go to a woman’s blog and go through the effort of TYPING A COMMENT to tell her that the things she shares on her blog and on her social media spaces, WHICH YOU HAVE TO OPT INTO READING, exhaust you.
Linda, nobody even COMMENTS ON BLOGS ANYMORE. And yet, look at how exhausted you are, typing comments like it’s 2012.
You know what I would like to normalize in 2021? Moving the fuck on with our own lives and not wasting keystrokes telling other women who make us UNCOMFORTABLE that they are too much/exhausting.
Don’t follow women who exhaust you, Linda. The internet is aplenty.
Let’s make it real awkward for people like Linda moving forward. Your friend or cousin or coworker starts going on about how they are so exhausted by women who are too much? Look at them and slowly ask them who is making them care. It’s 2021. We are a year into a pandemic, and the political landscape has left us emotionally raw. There are plenty of legitimate reasons to be exhausted, and this isn’t one of them.
Reader, your messy life is worth sharing, no matter how exhausting it may seem to others. Your “too much” is someone else’s “OMG it’s not just me.” I will not make myself small ever, ever again. Not for people I know in real life, and certainly not for Linda.
I’m not writing this for sympathy.
I assure you that for every comment like Linda’s that I get (to my internet face, at least) there are literally hundreds, maybe even thousands of women who thank me for living the exhausting and the too much out loud. I don’t need reassurance that what I share matters.
I’m writing this because I want you to know that if someone (like Linda) thinks you’re exhausting or too much, you’re doing a great job living an authentic life. Because life is SO FUCKING MUCH and so exhausting, and good on you for not making yourself small enough for people like Linda to swallow.
And if you’d like to book a $40 30 minute Zoom consulting session to pick my brain about business or blogging or nearly anything else, here’s the link. Thanks for your support! Hope your eyes don’t get stuck that way, Linda.
Click below to get my eBook! Learn how to take and edit photos you LOVE with just your phone and some free/cheap apps!
- Linda Is Exhausted By Me - February 12, 2021
- What To Know About Pediatric Flu Treatments In 2021 - February 9, 2021
- Here’s What I CAN & Want To Tell You About My Impending Divorce - January 27, 2021
15 comments
👏🏼 And f*** off Linda
Ohh this made me smile. I am going through a divorce precisely because I am “too much.” I have come to terms with my muchness, and the right people in my life think I am JUST RIGHT. Not too little, not too much.
Linda shall be added to the list of names we use to refer catty white women who simplycannothelpthemselves but to comment on other people’s business.
🤣
‘Like it’s 2012!’
Seriously- just the other day I saw friend Arnebya Resheda post about something similar but the phrase STICKS: “You don’t HAVE to have empathy but why advertise that you don’t?”
Fuckkkkkkkkkkk you Linda! Rock on Jill!
Bravo!!
Also, chuckling about the “NOBODY EVEN COMMENTS ON BLOGS ANYMORE!”
Commenting like it’s 2012 which is incidentally the year I found your blog – the reason I am still here nine years later is that you talk about the hard. Living in a works where everyone only shows the picture perfect moments is so very isolating. Thank you for sharing the highs and lows, but especially the lows because it gives the rest of us courage to face the Lindas of the world and say “you don’t get to decide how I tell my story.”
NOBODY EVEN COMMENTS ON BLOGS ANYMORE 😂😂😂 You are so much kinda people!
“Typing comments like it’s 2012” 🤣🤣🤣
This is my first blog comment probably since 2012 – but YES YES YESSSSSS. Poor Linda. I feel sorry for people who have lives that are so small.
I know you don’t need this comment/validation, but you are such a goddamn cheetah, Jill. I started following you years ago because you spoke truths about motherhood in a way nobody else did for me and validated so many of my feelings about being a complex human. I’ve admired how you have pursued your life in it’s iterations while many of us spend years wondering, “What if I…” You take the leap and bring us along with you, showing us the possibilities we have if we are brave enough to truly live and feel everything. Is it always perfect? Do things always turn out how we’d expect? No. No. But that is real life. Nobody’s life story is gonna end with “and then she lived happily ever after” as long as she keeps living, because that’s literally how life works. Besides, that would be fucking boring. Oh, Linda. I hope she finds what’s she’s looking for.
YES!!! I haven’t commented on a blog in AGES but goddamn this deserves a standing ovation. fuck right off, Linda.
Oooh can I also have my 2012 body back again too, since we’re commenting on blogs again? 2020’s ways can fuck right on off along with Linda. Love you.
Adding another comment to join the rest of the awesome women around here in giving you a standing ovation. FUCK OFF, Linda. No one gives a fuck what you think. Must be nice to push women down from behind a screen/keyboard, you petty tw@t.
I know you don’t need more validation, but it’s so refreshing to see someone post their true feelings. And stepping out of your comfort zone all the time. I often wonder what it would be like to travel the world with my ONE kid and admire you for doing it with 4!
Rock on, Jill! Keep doing hard stuff so other women know it can be done!! ❤️❤️❤️
Dang. I didn’t know people don’t comment on blogs anymore. But I still like Super Tramp, and I’m old, so there you go! Best to you!