God Help Us All
I’ve been writing a blog every Sunday since the beginning of the year. I took this on as part of a 30-day challenge to myself to try something new. The blog has allowed me to do a brain dump, to tuck away for safekeeping my endless churning thoughts. I had the misguided notion that blogging might help me sleep, something my constant thinking has denied. And if nothing else, I thought the blog might give me an opportunity to get my opinions and views off my chest rather than have them skulk about waiting for the next unsuspecting dinner guest.
Using social media has been a challenge from a number of perspectives: figuring out the technology, trying to say what I think in as few words as possible, to name only two. But the biggest challenge about blogging for me is the lack of contact with another person. I like people, I enjoy listening, and I like to think I make a good effort to try to understand another person’s point of view. I love conversation, that is, live conversation (my husband — he who thinks the only things I say come out as orders — might beg to differ) with others who may have similar or different ideas (it doesn’t matter). I love the exchange, the arguing, the understanding you come to and I guess I like hearing my own voice. What a thing to admit to, but it’s likely true. Conversation is a kind of validation, and the other person is a sort of mirror.
Maybe there is room for both conversation and blogging. I’m not sure, but I plan to continue to blog (and engage in conversation too) and see where it all goes. It’s a challenge. And I think I like challenges, or at least most intellectual challenges (see my blog about fear of skiing if you want further clarification). I feel as though I go into battle when I’m challenged and this is the place where I thrive. I like it when I’m told something can’t be done. That’s throwing down the gauntlet for me. This came home this week yet again when I received news that the little festival I began 12 years ago and have struggled to keep afloat ever since, received a huge injection of funding. I’ve worked so hard to get this kind of funding. And it is, as was publishing my novel, a dream come true. I am grateful for both. And yet, I notice a bit of sadness coupled in these successes as if the process not the outcome was the actual reward. The ride is so much fun! In my gratitude for all the things I’m lucky enough to enjoy, I’m already thinking ahead to the next challenge, the next mountain to climb. I suppose I’m frightened of stopping for too long in case I begin to stagnate. Not sure what happens after stagnation, but I’m not prepared to go there. No wonder I set more than one 30-day challenge at the beginning of the year. Always have to have something I’m working toward. I’m constantly telling myself, what have you done lately? God, I’m incorrigible and stubborn and driven and just a bit obsessive compulsive. Okay, all of you out there who know me, stop laughing now. Success, like failure seems to ignite the inner Rambo in me. All I can say is, God help us all.
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