Single Moms Sundays Series, Featuring Tara Dublin

*Single Moms Sundays is a series of guest posts by single moms that will serve to demonstrate the varied experiences and circumstances that shape and color a community filled with diversity.

Own Yourself

By Tara Dublin

I’m awesome, only I have to pretend I don’t think so, because it’s not okay for me to think so. 

I have a good voice, I’m a good writer, I know a lot about music, and I’m unemployed, so I talk about these things a lot. This makes me an attention whore. So I’m not supposed to talk about these things.

My Twitter name is TaraDublinRocks. This means I think I’m hot shit. Only I don’t, except sometimes when I do.

All of the above is true, but also not true. I know who I am. Other people know who I am. And then there are the people who THINK they know who I am, but really haven’t got the first clue. I’m aware of other peoples’ perceptions of me, and perhaps some (most) of those are wrong, but I’m the one to blame because I’m the one who puts myself out there in a very specific way. But it’s only because I have no choice other than to continue putting myself out there. It’s a vicious circle, this living your life without anyone’s help thing.

These are the cold, hard facts of my life: I was on the radio for five years. Now I’m not, and haven’t been for two years. There are those who think this is a dream I should let go of entirely because I haven’t been hired by a radio station (none of them with a better solution). There are others who think I belong nowhere else but on the air (none of them radio programmers--sadly). There are people who think my book should be published (none of them publishers--ditto), and still more who would love for me to get any sort of job because then I’ll shut the eff up about not having a job (none of them hiring). What would you have me tweet, folks? This is my job until I have job: looking for a job.

Hear this: I’m not an attention whore. I’m a writer and former radio DJ who also happens to be an unemployed single mother. This is who I am, but I need to make myself into a shinier, happier version of myself on a daily basis in order to sell myself. I apparently frustrate people because I haven’t given up on the dream of getting a cool job again. Because I have reaped the benefits of being a supremely minor locally known person in my immediate area (Portland, Oregon) and I don’t want to work retail at the mall, this makes me a snob. Apparently it’s wrong of me to want what I used to have that made me so happy. It also frustrates them that I won’t completely change who I am and shut up and eat shit, because they’d like it a whole lot better if I did. Since when did other people who don’t pay me become the boss of me? Never, that’s when.

In these modern times, one doesn’t have to literally pound the pavement to look for work; you can just put yourself online and hope that someone with money sees you and says, “Hey, look what I found!” Except that almost never happens. And when it does, it’s because the lucky person learned the art of Shameless Self-Promotion. I’ve developed some skillz in this area, which has helped grow my Twitter follower count and drive some new sets of eyes to my blog. Basically, if you want anyone to know who you are, you have to create the best possible version of yourself and then put it on the internet. The hope is you’ll attract all kinds of awesome folk who think you are also awesome. In turn, they will share your awesome with other awesome humans, and at some point, there will be some kind of something that occurs that you can deem a success. Vague enough for you? This is how it goes in the world of social media. It’s all about the right eyes seeing you at the right time.

The only problem with that, of course, is that even when you’re a really nice person with possibly a hair-trigger reaction system and a big mouth, sometimes what you put on the internet can get misconstrued and then people just think you’re a bitch. Once it’s out there, you’re cooked if someone doesn’t like you. People are now making fake Twitter accounts as parodies of real people, and the mean isn’t going to stop anytime soon. Haters are gonna hate, and you have to decide if your skin is thick enough to brush them off.

Since I have no one advocating for me, I have to do it myself. I am my own PR machine. If I see an opportunity flutter by in my Twitter stream, by golly, I’m gonna jump on it. If what I do bothers some (and it seems to), they have the wonderfully American right to choose to unfollow, unfriend, not read my blog, and basically pretend I don’t exist.

Except they don’t do that. So I’m just warning you. Until you have some real measured success, every moment you spend on shameless self-promotion can be misconstrued and used as fodder for the Blue Meanies of the Pepperland that is the internet. But we must bravely go forward, because like the Beatles in the final scenes of “Yellow Submarine”, we are the only ones who can turn the NO’s we get into YES’s.

It’s a lesson I’m trying to teach my sons every day: life is going to come up and punch you in the stomach sometimes. You have a choice in that moment: lay on the ground in a fetal position and cry, hoping someone comes along and saves you; or you can get up, take a deep breath, say, “Well, that sucked!” and go on. So we go on. Because we have no other choice. It’s okay to advocate for yourself if no one else does. You know you’re a rock star in your own way (even if your day starts with a crying jag in the shower). Front like it in the public eye, have your breakdowns in private. Don’t let the bastards get you down. Use your humor as a shield when you need to. Grab every opportunity and never apologize for fighting for your piece of the pie.

And for all that is right and holy in this world, please share this blog with anyone you know who might be looking for writers to pay. (See?  That’s how you do it, girlfriend.)

Tara Dublin is a single mom and freelance writer in Portland, Oregon. Follow her on Twitter @taradublinrocks and check out her blog at www.taradublinonline.com.