For each of us, doesn't the world revolve around us? I'm constantly fixated with whatever my problem du jour happens to be. I've been very grateful, through the years, for my dear friend PianoLady. Life has dealt her a much tougher hand than it dealt me. Whenever I need a sanity check, I just call her, and she puts me right back on course. And you know what? I have never heard her complain.
(I personally don't think I complain. FOMC told me once, a thousand years ago, that I complained. I told him I just stated facts. But it bothered me. I don't want to be viewed as a complainer.)
Lucy's blog post today is pondering the purpose of a blog. For me, mine started out to document my online dating experience. Then when my kids left Tucson and I moved into utter sadness, loneliness and what-do-I-do-with-my-life-ness, it hid behind a password while I shopped for a job and cried. Since February, it's been about adjusting to a new geography, a new way of living (guest room instead of home), a new job, a new status (pauper), and so on. I continue to hope that maybe somewhere, sometime in my life there may yet be a man to lean over as we're falling asleep and say, "love you, Dear." But I'm not placing any bets.
Always my blog has been two things for me: an incredible writing exercise and personal therapy-without-the-therapist.
This morning I was looking at Sitemeter to see what pages people had been visiting. Google had taken some random visitors to early pages back in October and November of 2006. I was surprised at how awkwardly written some of those pages were. Forcing myself to write each and every day, no matter what the topic and no matter the quantity of words, has been the best exercise in learning to write.
Heck, my first job as a writer was at age 20 at WDBO-TV in Orlando when I wrote promotional and public service copy spots for broadcast. Writing has always been around. But it's always been something I've done. It's never defined me and I've never considered myself a writer. Now, after two years and 993 posts to this blog, when I list to people the things I do—musician, programmer, fiber artist, database geek, …—I include writer.
I think, though, that through reading all the blogs I track each day (please note "Blogs of Interest on Tyler's right navigation bar) I learn more about each of the writers—Lucy, Crse, Fivehusbands, Chris, Deb, Sherry&John, Janko, Phil, et al. They become more and more a part of my life, my geography. I read Fivehusbands' posts this morning (with whom I feel a particularly close connection because of our shared life missteps) and I want to hop in the car and run up to Cleveland and take her out for coffee and her favorite evil pastry.
My world, which does revolve around me, is larger now than it was ten years ago, thanks to this wonderful thing called the Internet. I can be more aware of the people in my world thanks to their willingness to let it all hang out on their blogs. My friends can know that I'm sad when I am willing to divulge that. I don't need them to do anything about it. But it helps that I know they know that simple fact.
I don't believe in prayer. I don't believe there's a God up "there" somewhere who can hear all these requests from thousands of millions of people and act upon each of them and make things happen. But I believe that there's power in my sending good thoughts your way. And maybe that's all the same thing. Maybe what you call prayer is the same as what I call "I'm thinking of you" and someone else calls "positive vibes". Many phrases, same concept.
We're all in this together. Each of our worlds revolves around us, but it's all one big world.
I'm thinking of you.
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