Blogging out of the closet

Although I started this blog 4 short months ago, I’ve been privately blogging for over 9 years now, and have been closely following the lives of 10 strangers around the world. I have read the unfiltered thoughts of people that I’ve never met, (until recently, but that’s another post) yet I know some more intimately than their bed sharing partners.

For close to a decade, I’ve been here at my computer silently reading their heartfelt entries and offering up my two cents from afar. I’ve weighed in on the heavy: closeted insecurities, dysfunctional families, rape and molestation, spousal abuse, suicide, and the parting of longtime friendships. I too felt the hopefulness of their promising engagements and marriages only to later feel the pain of their crippling divorces and heartbreaking separations. I’ve witnessed the abrupt loss of self that so often occurs in directionless twenty-somethings, and was around on the day when the threatening and dispirited cloud was mysteriously lifted, and they stepped into their own.

There is something about unleashing your wounded and troubled self onto someone you don’t know in real life. Or, giving and receiving encouraging words from afar. That protective shield that we so often unknowingly put up is eliminated in the blogging sphere. I think it’s the physical distance that makes the process of unloading and accepting real and completely genuine. I’ve learned that you can give a little more of yourself through the exchange of the written word, and in the process gain so much more in return.

Over coffee once, I told a friend about my secret blogging adventures and she commented that it was like having modern day pen-pals — only grittier and juicer.

Over the years, I have gained an incredible amount of insight into what it means to be the author of your own life and the arduous courage it takes to accept defeat and move on. Blogging has given me an authentic connection to a writing circle whom I deeply respect and value. But most notably, blogging has taught me about the power of words and the immeasurable impact they have on the people who read them.

S.

Wise words

“Reading is everything. Reading makes me feel like I’ve accomplished something, learned something, become a better person. Reading makes me smarter. Reading gives me something to talk about later on. Reading is the unbelievably healthy way my attention deficit disorder medicates itself. Reading is escape, and the opposite of escape; it’s a way to make contact with reality after a day of making things up, and it’s a way of making contact with someone else’s imagination after a day that’s all too real. Reading is grist. Reading is bliss.“  — Nora Ephron

A text from my mother

Living alone

Have you ever lived on your own without a roommate or partner?

This year was a year of firsts for me and added to my lengthy list was living solo. The night before I was to move into my new place, I remember feeling this overwhelming sense of panic — I was utterly terrified to be all alone.

Those feelings of dread quickly evaporated as soon as I realized I could do whatever the hell I wanted. You know that scene from Home Alone when Kevin McCallister wakes up to find he’s all alone, rejoices at the top of the stairs, runs around the house like a lunatic, fires off Buzz’s BB gun, and then caps off the night by chillin’ out with a gangster flick while eating a bunch of junk food?  Well, that’s the essence of living alone, and it’s utterly blissful!

There are a multitude of perks to solitude. Walkin’ around in the buff is one of them. Occupying the entire closet is pretty amazing, too. I ate chips in my bed once (I got crumbs everywhere) and then I went all badass and slept in my sheets anyways, just because I could. You only have to wash your own laundry. But that nasty bit about folding it and putting it away afterwards, that part stays the same, which is truly unfortunate.

I don’t know, there is just something about being able to create your very own pigsty and then having the freedom to roll around in it for awhile without a pair of judgmental eyes burning into the back of your lazy head. Or rising out of bed early on an ordinary yet promising Sunday morning and watching the sun come up in silence as you drink your coffee and map out your day — the way you want to live it — that feels pretty incredible.

“When I grow up and get married, I’m living alone”

- Kevin McCallister, Age 8. 

S.

You don’t say?!

Paul Simon: Graceland

And she said losing love 
Is like a window in your heart 
Everybody sees you’re blown apart 
Everybody sees the wind blow

Mannequin madness

I can’t wait for Monday to arrive. I’m in desperate need of a fresh start, a new beginning. The last couple of weeks have been such a chaotic blur for me in terms of work/life balance; I feel like I’ve been stumbling through these last few weeks unconscious and if I’m completely honest, not entirely present.

When last Friday arrived, I remember scratching my tired head thinking: Where did the week go? Well, wherever it went, it took my mind with it. After a long day at work, I left exhausted and mentally depleted and somehow I managed to navigate my zombie-self to the grocery store. I was fatigued, famished and now that I think about it, suffering from low blood sugar because I asked this well-dressed Metro mannequin where the organic eggs were!

I immediately bursted into a hysterical fit of laughter, and in the middle of the dairy aisle, I quickly re-assessed my cognitive functions and silently shamed the marketer who was responsible for placing a mannequin in the middle of a grocery store. I promptly ditched the few grocery items I held in my hands and headed straight for the front door, completely disregarding the lone and baffled man beside me perusing the abundance of cottage cheese options at 11 p.m. on a weeknight.

I’m going to spend this beautiful Sunday relaxing, recalibrating and dining on organic eggs that I purchased at the market this morning. How was your week? Did you momentarily misplace your mind? If so, it’s OK. Monday is just around the corner.

S.

Wise words

Daydreaming

Wise words