…or…
Thank God Nobody Reads My Blog
by sueeeus maximus
I don’t edit very well. The point of blogging, for me, isn’t to acquire a following or a worldwide hit count. The blog has, for the most part, replaced my paper journals. I still write in the paper journals from time to time, especially when there are momentous things to write about, such as the passing of life.
I need to work through things. I don’t have a therapist (although my ob-gyn recommended it). I don’t have the company of close women friends. I work in a mass of men, some whom I adore, but I don’t get that woman to woman kinship, for the most part, except through the blog.
And it’s not that I’m all that needy. I’m not. Well, sometimes I am, but I attribute that to a childhood in which the father figure didn’t love me. Or, it could just be my genetics. It could just be the way I am, regardless of childhood nurturing or lack thereof. I’m seeing in my own child that he is who he is. It’s innate. So me, being the way I am, could well be innate.
I’m overly sensitive, and I have a gift, or perhaps curse, of empathy. I’m overly driven. I don’t know why. I like accomplishments. I like to make things. To design, to create. I like to get things done. I like closure. I like completion. I like order. I like form, fit, and function. I like simplicity. I like beauty. I like life.
It’s not all roses, and when the thorns prick, I write about it. When the flowers bud, I write about it. When the petals bloom, I write about it. When they get infested with aphids, I write about it. And when they wither and fall, I write about that as well.
Probably, I shouldn’t be quite so honest or forthright with such personal things. But what good would that do me? The blog is not about what others might think or deem appropriate. It’s for me. To work things out. All of it. The good, the bad, and the ugly. I could make it private, I suppose, and lock everyone out. So I suppose the hesitation to do so means that I do, in essence, crave those virtual pats on the back, words of sympathy or comfort, the hurrahs and the guffaws. Well, of course I do. Who wouldn’t? The kind blogfolk comprise the biggest part of my social life. In this virtual world, there are real, warm, breathing, decent people behind the avatars and screen names.
Yes, I ought to modify my real world life to roust up a collection of live, in the flesh, accessible women friends. But how would I do that? People make connections through work, through church, through school, through children. I work with men. I don’t go to church. I don’t go to school. How do people keep on with school, year in and year out? I was so traumatized at the end of my bachelor’s degree, twenty-some years ago, that I still cannot consider further education. (Of course, that’s probably my own fault for choosing electrical engineering, classical control systems, instead of art, architecture, English, or design. And not that EECS was all that hard, but I made it much harder on myself. Because I do that. And I digress. Frequently.) My child is in daycare, and the other daycare mothers are busy with their own lives. I don’t have much time for special interest activities in which I might meet people. So this is it. Le Blogue. This works for me.
And gosh, I do appreciate the hugs and white light energy that beams my way from all parts of the earth when I’m in a dark and cloudy place. But I’m not all gloom and doom. Of course, gloom and doom is excellent fodder for a good blogorific unwind, but there are other aspects of life that inspire the fingers to leap to the keyboard. Now and then.
I wish I were funny and entertaining. Or more so. Who doesn’t secretly or blatantly wish to be the belle of the ball, the cheer leader, the centerfold, the ring leader, the rock star, the stand-up, or the sage, the wise one that others turn to for guidance and inspiration. The one that everyone else wants to be like.
I am who I am. I’d like to be able to leave a legacy when it’s my time to go. I’d like to know that I did the world some good. Isn’t it so egotistical, to want to leave a mark? I probably won’t end up writing that best-selling book, and I’m surely not going to end up writing a hit-single or painting a masterpiece that moves the masses. I might leave behind a uniquely and well-designed home for someone later to enjoy, but I will never be a Frank Lloyd Wright. What I can do, and will do, is love my child with all the love that I have, and try to help him grow to be a fine man who embraces the world and shines love all around. And when it comes down to it, perhaps that is the most important thing of all.
