About 8 years ago I had a friendly associate who was earnest about the need for me to start blogging. This was an active part of her life and she was a big believer that every one would be doing alot better if we lived our lives as she did. Granted ,she did introduce me to some very good day to day New York resources like Fresh Direct. She was the first person I knew who used Netflix. These were good additions to my complusive list making habbits.
But she was also embraced a certain kind of 1930s Warner Brothers cartoon insanity to her life .Not the softer elegance that a Chuck Jones 1950s world , were evil is humilated when they strike at the innocent.Rather the ones were people were brought down in ugly violent ways just because they weren't as " wacky" as the other characters. she was very into the whole open relationship/marriage thing. Now I am willing to be proven wrong but in my experince in hetrosexual relationships these setups seem to be a draw for those who love drama ,competion and mind games. She would tell me about her weekends , tales of visiting other open minded couples. There didn't seem so much sexy stuff going on .Mostly I got discriptions of kitchen doors slamming, people breaking down sobbing, and my pal wondering why everyone had to be so boring.
I thought of blogging as another avenue of her well meaning ego taking a very pubic jog in public. Fine for her. Just not for me. I was not feeling like I wanted to put my self out in a big public way at the time. Things were a little shakey, I was in a transition of life that I didn't want to others to be in on. Frankly, I didn't want to be hanging out in my thoughts very much at the time but I had no other options. Why would anyone else willingly want in on that stuff? So I said thank you very much to her and her offer to expose me to the masses.
Flash forward almost a decade. Things are much better , thank you very much. New career, new health emotionaly and physically. New home, neighborhood ,pals, file cabinets.What could be better? I also discover that quite a few people I respect do the blog thing on a regular basis. I find ones by people I don't know through random internet roaming that are wonderful writers. They share thoughts and storys that I feel lucky that they want to share with me , the humble reader. My arrogance gets bitch slapped.
In the last 6 months or so there has been alot of life that has been sort of dropping down from the sky. Sort of like the Universe saying, " You think you are so damn healthy? Dig this!!!!" And I do do do deal. All I willingly take on. I think discomfort is often the sign of life well lived. I am trying my best day by day to take on bigger goals, be more responsible. Dare I say , more adult?And this is a good thing. But the problem is I don't think I have had a full nights sleep in about 2 months.
I fall asleep alright. The problem is that I also wake up at 3 in the morning alright as well. And I think .And I think. And my cat demands I pay attention to him since I am up. Then I think some more.
I have been wondering if it might be time for me to have some sort of outlet. Don't get me wrong, I am a social being who has any number of people who are willing to hear me rattle on. But most of them have very busy schedules that involves having to call them days ahead of time to see if there is mutual time free for rattling. I don't have any 3 in the morning , can I tell you my obsession of the moment, people at present.
Throughout my teens and 20s I was an obessive journal writer. I have boxes of them that I never look at but could never throw away. They were my safety net for my sanity. My family are very private but very kind people. They are embarried by large showings of emotions but want very much to be understanding to those who do. For example, if one winter night you and your mother visited one of their homes for dinner, and you mother dropped dead, my relatives would most likely not say any thing .They would not wish you to feel ill at ease by mentioning the whole dead parent situation. However if you discovered that your car battery was dead on the way to the mourge, my family members who go out into the cold and recharge it for you.
Coming from that enviroment, I thought my expression of my thoughts and emotions was very dangerous. I had a habit of keeping things in for a very long time and then explode at ill timed moments. Come to think of it, I still do that sometimes. But now it's less like an explotion, more like one of those cap things that kids stomp on in the summer. Its a surpise but not distructive. But back in the day I wrote and wrote for the freedom of saying to forbidon.That I was hurt, angry, lustful. That I was human, not the mess that I feared the world would see me as if I spoke my mind.
Then I didn't need to do that anymore. I did a great deal of work on my self with therapy, workshops, just listening to others. At some point there was the discovery that my view points were not the source of distruction that I had thought they were. I could actualy say things like ,
" Hey Bob, I disagree with your feeling about that Tapas joint. "
The world wouldn't come to an end. My head would not curve in on it self as it created a killer migrane to punish me so the lapse in self expression. The notebooks with ironic pictures on the covers no longer needed to be purchased.
But I still have things I think I need to say and get out of my system. These are things I think I want to share. I am a little scared. I had a recent run in with internet message board crazyiness that has left me watchful of others . We all have different values about these things,but my feeling is if you have to rage out at someone you have never met in an online fashion, I think it's time to play more board games. Or cards. Hearts can be a terrific place to put ransom hostility without insulting someone elses mother.
But here we go. Let's give this a try. What button do I push to start this thing?
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