I owe you an apology.
Yes, you – you who are reading this now and wondering if I’m actually talking to you because you might be someone I’ve never actually met in person.
This is for you.
I’m sorry, because I sometimes forget you are here.
This space – this blog – has become, over the last twenty years, my own diary of sorts. It’s been a place where I can explore and experiment with writing and images, where I can post anything and everything my heart desires without censorship or limits or worry. It’s my own little public playground where I can frolic and flail, but sometimes I forget that it is so public, that you are reading this, that it’s a diary open to all.
When I write a blog post, it is usually done in the quiet and silence of my home. While ideas and phrases and sentences come to me throughout the day and night (usually at the most inconvenient times such as right after I’ve stepped into a running shower) to put them onto proverbial paper, or laptop screen, is a task I undertake in solitude and stillness. It’s the spirit in which I’d like it to be read, and it’s only right that I should honor that by crafting posts in similar fashion. That sort of solitude, however, has fooled me into forgetting about you – the reader, that other side of the equation, with formulas likely worked out in a very different manner, no matter how similar we wind up in the end.
That doesn’t bother me – you are always welcome to share in this ongoing exercise of self-examination and self-analysis – yet it’s created a minor conundrum, because in addition to the isolated way in which these posts are crafted, it’s also given me complete and total control over how my story is told. There are blind spots and weaknesses and failings in that though, and navigating this treacherous journey can not fully be done on one’s own, no matter how I might try. That means when someone else tells my tale, it can be a terrifying new experience, one that recently wreaked great havoc, even if it was all in my mind. Even if I made it all up.
“I hadn’t quite made up my mind to admit it. Now I suddenly feel as if I’ve taken all of my clothes off.” ~ Margo Channing, All About Eve
If Margo Channing can feel such sabotaging self-doubt just after she turned 40, then surely my own own flailing as I approach the age of 48 can be forgiven, or at the very least understood. As for you, while my opening apology was heartfelt, it also rings a bit hollow, because if I think of you too much, if I allow you to occupy my head, then there isn’t as much room for me to run free. And while I’m good when I’m reined in a bit, I’m better when I’m wild.
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