Dear Pervette

Do you want to hear me mumble? You can hear me read and edit this post if you hit play… (if you don’t see the audio player, try refreshing your page, that might do the trick)

Dear Pervette,

I had this thought when I was in the shower the other day. I’m going to start a diary, right now, right here, to you. Because I think this might be the answer to my self-inflicted problem. The problem where I think my writing isn’t good enough to share. It makes me cringe when I read my own writing. It’s funny, how I can be completely fine with showing the world my body, but if I were to show you my writing, eeugh, that’s when I really feel naked. So that’s where I’ve been, stuck in this internal conflict where I want to share with you my world, but I’m way too self-conscious about how I write it up.

But I think I just found a way to get unstuck. It came to me when I was home for Thanksgiving. I had found my diary from high school. I only wrote a few entries in it but what I read reminded me that I was always that weird girl who was lost inside her own head and trying to figure life out. It’s rare for me to be drawn to my own writing, but here I was, drawn in to my diary. Maybe because I was curious to see who I was back then. But also because I liked the way I wrote. I wrote like I didn’t care. My words were a direct expression of my interior world with no trace of inhibitions or self-consiousness. And my diary was a vessel into which I can pour my unfiltered thoughts and feelings. I realized, that’s exactly what I want Pervette to be.

So that’s why, Pervette, I’m writing to you as my diary. Because I’m still trying to figure myself out. And because I need to write to know what I think. Because all this stuff is in my head and I just need to get it out.

So if you promise not to judge me on how I write, then I promise to write without fear. And I promise I’ll stop asking myself how do I sound? Because that’s all I’ve been doing—writing, stopping and worrying… Do I sound too weird? Too perverted? Too narcissisitic? Too woo-woo? The answer is probably yes. Because I am all those things. So I’ll just be me. And the expectation is that you’ll accept me.

Speaking of expectations, here’s what you can come to expect. I’m going to write as fast as I can, stream of consciousness fast. I’m going to be a grammatical psychopath along the way. Because I really want to go deep. Deep into my subconscious. I want to talk about my darkest fantasies, my traumas, my childhood, my dreams, and my visions. These are all my secrets that I’ve been keeping to myself. And I keep on wondering, will I feel less alone if my most private self was heard and understood?

Here’s what might happen. If you had a fantasy of Colette being a perfect Goddess, that will most likely be smashed. I’ve been going back and forth on how much of myself do I reveal. If I keep the mystique of Colette, then the range of what I can say is limited by the illusion of what Colette is. And as far as you (the fantasy-holder) know, she only has one relationship. With you. But the reality is that I have hundreds of relationships. They’re all unique and far from conventional. And I love them all. As they’ve made me me. To understand me is to understand my relationships and how I conceptualize them. To break through to the other side, I have to tell you everything.

Here’s how Pervette is different from my high school diary. My diary was a thing that I anthropomorphized. I treated this book like it was my confidant. It was alive, but only in my own head. But with Pervette, it’s not a thing. It’s an entity, that exists outside of myself as it’s made up of you, the readers and contributors. And you can write back to me. And share with me your thoughts. As I reflect upon myself, you reflect back.
Maybe you’ll validate me, maybe you’ll tell me to consider another perspective, maybe you can help me see myself through your eyes. Maybe you can help me grow. Maybe you’ll tell me I’m not alone.

Colette

photo: Colette reflecting
audio: Colette finding her voice