Echo and Narcissus

Wednesday, November 07, 2007

Over the past year, my blogging has been stripped down to the bare bones.

Of course, one could look at my collection of bloggy bloggedness and think...This is bare bones? She IS crazy.

No, no. I mean here. Baleful. This is my blog home. The place I can come home, take off my very pretty heels. Put on my comfy jammies and just be me. This is the home where I know where everything is, hidden in the cupboards. Even that old tin of dusty saffron, way in the back, or the mysterious jar of mint jelly. And honestly...why do I have this many cans of broth? Is there an impending broth shortage?

For a little while, I felt what other bloggers have described. I started to write for other people. I dressed up my home. I put out the special hand towels in the bathroom. I served some fancy dishes. Not because I liked them, but because OTHERS seemed to like th em and I wanted to be liked. I, like Harvey Fierstein, just want to be loved. Is that so wrooooooonnnnnng?

No, it isn't wrong - but it isn't really me.

I had a rage yesterday. This rage sent me into the bathtub for a long soak. I covered my face in mud and lay in the steaming water trying to filter through the different levels of anger and disappointment that moved through my body in rapid electrical shocks.

Part of this rage is figuring out my place in this world - this odd, ethereal blog world. Let me be clear - this isn't a rage at any one person - but within myself. There are things that I have left undone - goodbyes to former friends that I have let go unsaid, or simply faded away into the nothingness of the internet. That is easier for me, certainly. I, who sneak out of parties when I can not take the social aspect anymore. I like lack of fuss. I like quiet endings. I am a very low maintenance friend.

However, those endings do not tend to be soul satisfying. This had led to my dreaming as of late. Dreaming in which the landscapes which have dominated my dreams for years are subtlety changing. This is very disconcerting, as it is like walking into your bathroom and finding all of your toiletries gone. These places have a purpose and the purpose has changed and you are trying to piece it all together through a foggy filter of dreaming.

Do I sound a little crazy?

Sigh. Sadly, I am not. I am the most lucid I have been in two long years.

The dreams tell me that I am moving on. Literally. I am packing things up in dream worlds that I have occupied for over ten years. I am announcing to the people who live in those places that I am leaving. I am not sneaking out. This is , of course, scary. And liberating. It means I will be able to tell those stories soon and that my telling will be as objective as I can be. Maybe even funny.

And here, in this waking blog world I am saying goodbye to the people to whom I failed to say good bye. This might seem silly as they no longer walk by here on their way to work, but it needs to be done. I will miss you, friend. I enjoyed our time together. I liked the person I knew at the time I knew that person. I accept that it is not you, and it is not me. We did not fail at anything. There is no blame to be assigned. The friendship lived its life for the season it was meant to live. You made me laugh - maybe more, but that the beauty of the shared emotion is enough. I release you from your obligations, and me from any of mine.

And that includes any of you lingering here for any other reason but choice and enjoyment. You don't have to stay, and I am grateful if you do, but I am no longer writing for anyone else. I am turning off the comments for this blog, as I know myself and I will be tempted to see who is visiting and who is commenting and who, who, who.....

No, I write for me.

This is how my voice will come back to me.
 
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