I Will Follow You

I've been blogging for two years now, seeing my my life as a series of "bloggable" and "not bloggable" events and trying my best to write well, write honestly, and write fast. My reasons for blogging have been part social, part chronicle, and part therapeutic. Sometimes this is the only adult communication I have in a given day. With 9 people living in this house those days are few and far between now, but they do still happen. 2 years of doing this, and it wasn't until recently that I really started looking around at other bloggers except for a few close friends. I do this a lot in life. I join groups and get so absorbed in the part I must play in them that I forget to look around - really look at people's faces - and see the humanity that surrounds me. I do this in theater, music, school, work, and even living in a house full of family I haven't lived with in 6 years or more. I don't know if I'm really self-absorbed, have a one-track mind, or if I'm just worried that I won't do a perfect bang-up job of whatever it is I'm doing. I just lose sight sometimes. My peripheral vision blacks out, and I forget that I am surrounded by other beating hearts. It's so refreshing and such a relief to finally look around and see others struggling, celebrating and cataloging this crazy life we lead. I'd like to shout out to all of you fellow bloggers - both the ones who know me and the ones who don't, but whose blogs nonetheless add savor to my morning cup of coffee. You inspire me to keep writing, though I know I'm not great at it. I know I don't comment half as often as I should or would like, but I hear you. All of you. And I really appreciate the time you spend communicating with the world. I'm trying harder to see you, to cheer you on, laugh with you, cry with you, love and hate the things you say . . . I'll follow you to through all the dark and light places you lead me, and I hope you'll do the same. After all, that's what we're here for, right?

Boggarts and fallow land

I've been having a lot of conversations with old friends lately who, though on all walks of life, are experiencing the same growing pains. It's funny how we become little experts when someone else needs help - handing out relationship, career and parenting advice like we know what we're talking about when we don't have a stinking clue. Not a single one of us. All I know is that most people my age are struggling right now. Maybe our mid-20s are a transition we didn't know about - one where we have to buck up, grow up, and let go. Or maybe it's just the time we come to realize that we can't fulfill everyone's expectations of us - least of all our own. Whatever it is, a lot of people are hurting. Everyone I know, almost. One friend said to me, "nothing about me is real" and I said I knew how he felt. I am, after all, a phenomenal performer. Maybe I wasn't the best person for him to glean any useful advice from. The only thing I could think of to say was,

"It's all real. Even the fake stuff."

There's light and darkness in all of us. Cliche, I know, but it's real - all of it. We're not fake. Flawed, yes. Fake - impossible. Thinking back on all the times I've dished out and received this criticism (some quite recently), I see the absurdness of it now. (nerd alert!) I imagine my personal boggart might be a mannequin whose style morphs according to her surroundings. And my riddikulus spell would have her doing the robot and giving bunny ears to witless bystanders. It's genius, really, that Harry Potter learns to fight his greatest fears with laughter. Because in the end, what does it matter? In fact, I wonder what other demons and darknesses will, with time, deflate with a simple shrug and chuckle. All of them? Seems that with age our parents become more wisely ridiculous. Like Samuel in Steinbeck's East of Eden, they laugh and shake their heads at us overly serious and pretentious 20-somethings who either don't want to or don't know how to let go of our pain:

'Do you take pride in your hurt?' Samuel asked. 'Does it make you seem large and tragic? . . . Maybe you're playing a part on a great stage with only yourself as audience . . . there's all that fallow land, and here beside me is all that fallow man. It seems a waste. And I have a bad feeling about waste because I could never afford it. Is it a good feeling to let your life lie fallow?'

Staring at this post I realize I have no profound conclusion or explanation for any of this. Maybe I'm doing it again - being that little expert I know I'm not. Or maybe, just maybe, there's someone out there who needs to know he or she is not alone. You're not.

You're not.