Well, this certainly took longer to write than I anticipated.

How are y’all doing?

I don’t know about you all, but quarantine has been weird for me. Being home 98% of the time, only going out for necessities or a walk around the neighborhood (surprisingly the best place I can continue to social distance without driving more than 45 minutes away), has made things trickier than I could imagine in my head.

I hope you all know that if you are feeling anxious or isolated or even depressed, that that’s ok. I don’t know much, but I do know from my own experience that acknowledging our feelings/emotions and knowing it’s okay to feel whatever we’re feeling is a huge step in overcoming emotional obstacles.

I am sorry this one took me so long, but life happens and I had to deal with the previously mentioned ’emotional obstacles’ of sharing some of what I am about to share with you. I intend to be more frequent about these blog entries, but I am stubborn and I was determined that the subject of my byline would be the second entry.

There’s several reasons why.

First and foremost, I intend to use, on this blog, my skills as a (former) journalist to bring you some journalist-quality content. I have ideas and I am starting to put some wheels in motion.

And because of that I want anyone reading this blog to know that there is a real person behind the articles or entries here. That there’s no bot or analytic generating computer writing words that may or may not have a more sinister agenda. We live in a time where the truth is constantly under attack and I hurt for all the hard working journalists working to inform us of the things happening in our world.

I am a real person, living in West Virginia and writing words as I contemplate the world around me and my personal place in it.

And I am sharing all of that here with you.

And that leads me to the using of my name BillyBen here. It’s not a name I have been confident enough to use in my adult life. Just so I am clear, like, the entirety of my adult life.

It’s a name I began (purposefully) phasing out since mid-high school and full on abandoned in college and really never looked back.

And so for those who grew up with me and who looked over me all those years ago, BillyBen is who I’ve always been.

But, for anyone who has met me post-high-school. Well its simply a name I have not spoken in public.

And the reason I’m using it now? This is my space after all, where I am publishing 100% of myself for you all to read. I’m sorry about that.

But most of all it’s because I miss it because I miss my dad. I’m entering my 10th year with him being gone and I’ve missed that guy every day.

In his passing, I discovered we never stop grieving. It’s just I can hide it better some days than others. And on the most random days it hits me hard that he is not around.

But I am also certain that if it was socially normal, BillyBen would have been the name on my birth certificate.

“I had that name picked out in high school” he told me on numerous occasions.

And it’s not just a name he called me sometimes. It was the only name he called me. Even when he was disappointed in me, it was what he used to let me know that he still loved me.

But having trouble in school with being bullied and I didn’t want to give anyone more ammo than they already had, I began to quiet the use of BillyBen. My last name didn’t help either, but anything that gave me more credibility in being accepted, I tried to use to my advantage.

I began insisting people call me “Bill.”

My father’s worst nightmare.

He was also Bill. And as he told me, countless others.

Why be a Bill, when he gave me the gift of BillyBen?

And it’s not a name I go by very regularly, because I guarded it. But, as I continue to learn more about myself: through meditation, through counseling, through reading and listening to podcasts, it is a name that is more a part of me than it has ever been before.

Being more in control of my fears and anxiety has allowed me to be more comfortable with myself and the events that have lead me here, to this moment where I am writing to you.

I can’t regret anything that has lead me here. I won’t. I’m not regretful of my decision to use my name less. But, I am thankful for the lessons I learned from it.

And now I am ready. This is my Simba moment. Just without all that “one true king stuff” 😂.

For you to know it. For me to use it more. For me to honor my father’s memory.

I still hear him. On a car ride blasting Dire Straits (“Walk of Life” anyone?). In the kitchen of a home in a West Virginia holler:

“When you enter a room and someone yells out “Bill!” 10 guys turn their heads. But when you hear ‘BillyBen…'”

That’s me.

A guy learning to accept more of himself than he has ever been before. Trying to always learn. To live adventurously. A guy who wants to keep his father’s memory alive and try to even compare to a fraction of his legacy.

I’ve stumbled a lot in my life, but I hope I’m up to the task.

And, I’m tired of turning my head and finding out I’m not the Bill their looking for.

I’ll see you all again very soon. Thank you for reading!

This is weird. This isn’t how I planned, nor envisioned starting this endeavor.

But, that’s life right? So now in the middle of a pandemic I’m going to just plunge in.

I’m starting small as this will be a work in progress. There will be bumps. I’m not going to be perfect. Things will change and evolve as I go. I hope you’ll be along for the ride.

So. What is this? Good question.

First, thing’s first. I have no clue what I’m doing here. I mean, I know a tiny bit. I know I’ve always enjoyed writing. But, running a blog? Daresay I, a website?! 😬

The roots of this go all the way back to my college days. I was obsessed with a book of poetry I found when visiting New York City. The book and it’s impact on my life will be the topic of a future entry. But, I was so obsessed with one poet, Bob Holman, that I scoured the Internet to try and contact him.

I had questions.

How do I get published? Where do I begin? What’s the process of submitting? What was his story?

And after a quick search query from whatever existed before Google, I found him.

There it was an email address. His email address. Holy. Shit. WHAT?! It was like that moment in “High Fidelity” where Rob is trying to find contact information for that one girl he dated who was out of his league and finds her in the phone book.

That reaction: “SHE’S IN THE PHONEBOOK!” That was my reaction. How could his email just be here for anyone to find?

And I did it, I emailed him. I can’t remember how long it took for him to respond, but he did.

I looked at my email in disbelief. There it was. An email response from someone I considered a literature hero.

It was a brief response. I can’t remember everything he wrote, but he told me to “Start a ‘zine!”

What. How the fuck is a lowly college student just going to start a self-published ‘zine? How am I going to do that? The task seemed impossible. And honestly, I did not have the imagination at the time to figure out a way to make that happen.

But the thought always stayed with me, especially as I would go to comic book conventions and see creators who would write, draw and very obviously put their books out on their table with the help of places like Staples or some other mass printer place. Messy staples, photo copier quality pictures, but they were doing it. Crude copies. But, they were carving out a niche for their creative endeavors in a medium they loved.

If they could do it, why couldn’t I? Another good question. And those answers, I’ll be delving into future entries as almost all of it revolves around battles with anxiety.

And now that leads me to here, to today, whenever you’re reading this. I recently read another blog entry from a writer I’ve never read but heard about from a former work colleague. That blog entry from Chuck Wendig shook me. Shook me free of anxieties of writing for myself. This is my voice. This is me writing for me, writing for you.

Because if I am ever going to get better at this, I gotta get practicing. On the regular. And that’s this.

I have been planning for this since I sent that email to Bob Holman all those years ago. Everything happens in time. And here I am. Writing. For me for once. No editors to interfere. I am completely myself in this space. My space.

(Pun 💯 intended).

That was a lot of words. Hold on while I stretch and nestle into this cozy digital-space I’m carving out for myself.

So why wait so long to start something like this? Writing is hard. It’s lonely and anxiety inducing when you’re left alone with yourself. At least for me it is.

But, life’s journey has led me to grasp with my issues with anxiety and that has helped me to be more comfortable with the idea of putting my writing out there.

I have to practice. I have to work on this more and more and more. And the hope here is,the energy I put into this will help me find the motivation and inspiration to work on the 1 million other things that have been dancing around in my head since I was a kid. Since I was BillyBen (tease for my next entry 😉).

No more distractions. No more avoiding. I’m going to make writing a priority. It’s time.

So what is this going to be? Who knows. I have swayed back and forth between making this blog one focus or another:

Politically Relevant?
Creative Endeavor?
Independent journalism?
Pop Culture Analysis?
Heck even sports?

But, why not just whatever I want to write in the moment? So it’s just going to be a little bit of everything.

OR maybe I just wanted an excuse to write super long Facebook posts without Facebook being involved.

I have hopes that this will be an insightful place. A place to build a community. A place to laugh, learn and grow as a person and as people.

I’m writing to point out the things I’ve learned over a lifetime as much as I am writing to learn more about the world and people around me. I’m writing for myself. For you. And all of us. Learning and growing are going to be big themes around here.

Leave a comment. Get in touch with me. Send me an email. Want your own safe space to try a writing project and test the waters of writing? Tired of social media? Talk to me. I bought this webspace to be a place of openness, learning and love.

Questions and all view points are welcome here. Hate will not be tolerated.

With all that said, this is going to be a weird, funny, awkward, insightful and exciting journey. I think.

Can’t wait to see where this goes.

See ya next week!