“Can you wait for the sandwiches, while I stay with the dog?”

“OK”

Not OK.

The summer breeze cuts off abruptly as I walk through the doors of the VERY middle class cafeteria. I look around the bustling room for a place to stand where I am out of the way but still visible by the servers emerging from the kitchen. I turn the wooden spoon so the number faces outwards. “9” – does that mean ninth in line? After a few moments I realise that it does not. The servers behind the till are handing out the wooden spoons randomly. My chest tightens as I realise that I have no idea how long I will be standing here. Why? Why can’t there be a clear order? Are they TRYING to stress me out?

Ten minutes goes by.

I try to distract myself by watching the servers and baristas working, then angle myself to see through the small square window to the kitchen. Ahh. So the kitchen is the problem. The pace outside the kitchen verses the pace inside is ridiculous. The two chefs couldn’t move slower if they tried.

“Hey there! What’s your order number, Sweetheart?”

I jump and blink at the overly enthusiastic fifty something server who has appeared suddenly at my elbow. He’s short and bald with a bushy moustache. A klaxon goes off in my mind:

“THREAT! THREAT! THREAT!”

I take a deep breath, remind myself how unreasonable my brain can be, and make a big deal of looking down at my spoon to check the number.

“Nine.” I practically whisper my response.

“OK, Sweetheart, I’ll check with the kitchen for you,” he says and rushes off.

I grimace at his back. Now he’s going to come and talk to me again. Shit.

I do another scan of the cafeteria and spot an unoccupied stool behind me which I hadn’t noticed before. I hop onto it and grin like a kid when I find that it spins. I check my phone and realise that there is free WIFI – just the thing to lift my mood, whoo! Now I can wait and ignore everything around me. I assume the position; head down, shoulders curved in, phone in hands in lap. I can do this.

Introduction to the series:

The ‘How it is Now’ series is a space where I will be expressing my deepest and darkest thoughts on myself and the world. As a bisexual with a bouquet of mental health issues who is also questioning their gender identity, my thoughts can get pretty diverse and black! But fear not, there will be lightness and marshmallows too.

Episode 1:

I think and struggle and think and struggle against the aches and pains the thoughts cause. I speak to myself and am met with negativity and confusion. I speak to others and am faced with the same, but it is even worse because they lie, they claim to understand in a selfish attempt to drag me back from the precipice on which I sit, legs swinging in the rapidly hastening wind.

It’s terrifyingly lonely to know that no one will ever understand me, not even myself. It’s painful to think that J might have understood me, as my twin. Sometimes I find myself wishing he were with me, to reach inside my mind and tidy it up like a kind and wise librarian in a monumental magical library. Somehow I feel that he would know how to order things in there so that I could exist with ease in my own space, that he would know too which items were clutter and which of crucial importance. I realise now that my Mother tried to warn me throughout my childhood and teen years that no one could ever truly know me, because only I lived inside my own mind. She’d say that it was the same for everyone, and that we all had to learn to live with that small sense of loneliness, or even come to embrace the privacy of it. I know now that she was mistaken. Most people can find others who are likeminded, but there is no one out there like me. Not even others with the same diagnosis. I am, and always will be, truly and utterly alone.

This is an example post, originally published as part of Blogging University. Enroll in one of our ten programs, and start your blog right.

You’re going to publish a post today. Don’t worry about how your blog looks. Don’t worry if you haven’t given it a name yet, or you’re feeling overwhelmed. Just click the “New Post” button, and tell us why you’re here.

Why do this?

• Because it gives new readers context. What are you about? Why should they read your blog?
• Because it will help you focus you own ideas about your blog and what you’d like to do with it.

The post can be short or long, a personal intro to your life or a bloggy mission statement, a manifesto for the future or a simple outline of your the types of things you hope to publish.

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• Why are you blogging publicly, rather than keeping a personal journal?
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• If you blog successfully throughout the next year, what would you hope to have accomplished?

You’re not locked into any of this; one of the wonderful things about blogs is how they constantly evolve as we learn, grow, and interact with one another — but it’s good to know where and why you started, and articulating your goals may just give you a few other post ideas.

Can’t think how to get started? Just write the first thing that pops into your head. Anne Lamott, author of a book on writing we love, says that you need to give yourself permission to write a “crappy first draft”. Anne makes a great point — just start writing, and worry about editing it later.

When you’re ready to publish, give your post three to five tags that describe your blog’s focus — writing, photography, fiction, parenting, food, cars, movies, sports, whatever. These tags will help others who care about your topics find you in the Reader. Make sure one of the tags is “zerotohero,” so other new bloggers can find you, too.