Meta-blogging

Very interesting article in the NY Times Sunday magazine this coming week, about blogging about your personal life. The author and I are very different in several ways, most notably that her blog was very well read and she was not anonymous. And so of course, those differences lead to other differences.

I no longer had the luxury of writing something and imagining that the only people who might read it would be a handful of funny, supportive friends.

I do have that luxury. I expect maybe 4 people read this blog, if that much, and I assume you are all in my corner, a little. Or at least, I assume you (if any 'yous' exist) mean me no harm. There are no nasty comments on this blog--no one has ever left one. "Attention is my drug," one of the characters in the story confessed. And I get no attention from here--so I don't do it for that reason (although that comment someone left a month ago or so touched me deeply). But I crave the clarity that I sometimes get from exploring a topic.

I had been getting up each morning at 7 a.m., my thoughts jostling in my head, eager to escape.

I'm not a morning person, but that sense of allowing an idea to escape, not just escape, blossom, is a strong compulsion. Somehow, I believe if I can truly understand what makes me feel something, than I can accept it and live peacefully with it. I think for me, this is a sort of therapy. And I'm pulled here when I'm feeling something I can't explain.

The will to blog is a complicated thing, somewhere between inspiration and compulsion. It can feel almost like a biological impulse. You see something, or an idea occurs to you, and you have to share it with the Internet as soon as possible.

For me, it is not so much the sharing as the exploring, but I'm more likely to explore an idea if I put it here, if I think I can tease out the underlying issues, but I crave the idea that I'm not alone in struggling with these issues and that someday, someone out there will say "yes--that's how I feel too." I also believe that women my age have been dealt a very difficult hand and by discussing those contradictory pulls on our lives we can, hopefully, treat ourselves with a little more love. And knowing we're not alone, helps give permission to accept.

I was in the 6th or 7th grade when I snuck into my first "R" rated movie--Fame. And the scene when the Irene Cara took off her shirt--it was so important, because it was the only time I saw a woman who had breasts like mine. I didn't have real nipples till I was older, and I always thought there was something wrong with my breasts. Seeing her's were just like mine made me feel much better about my own. I hope that exploring my neuroses on the little screen can, maybe, help have the same impact.

But there are some similarities.

I’d been clinging to [him] for months in spite of our differences because, in addition to the comfort and stability he gave me, he was my sounding board — someone with whom I could share my unfiltered thoughts, without worrying about being entertaining. In his absence, I was becoming more and more open on Gawker.

I miss John because of the same reason. I don't even know if I miss John, or I miss the idea of John. Do I miss the "John" of the 700 e-mails or the guy who's name isn't John that I can spend 8 hours with and wish for 8 more. Or do I miss the guy who's name really is John that cherished my self-analysis even if he didn't partake? Where does "John" end and John begin? Do I really even know "John?" They were powerful glimpses. I loved knowing him. But did I really?

I've got a date with one of the guys I went out with last week on Friday. He is taking me ballroom dancing. Just about the best date I could ask for from anyone. He is a sweet man, and he seems to like me. But there isn't that restless search for clarity, or that self-awareness. He isn't tantalized by words. Maybe somehow we would start that dance of the 7 veils of self-disclosure, but I don't see how we'd begin. There are no hints that we could go there. The NY Times gal writes:

I wanted him to know everything there was to know about me.

Yes, exactly. But I don't just want a mythical him to know everything about me. I want him to embrace and accept and cherish and adore. Even my horrible sides. The idea that someone could know my most private details. And still say "OK. You're worth it. I'll take the good with the bad."

The Republican wanted to see me naked, physically. And I can name every single one of my physical flaws. If I had done it, it would have made me feel incredibly vulnerable because would he be rejecting me because my stomach isn't flat, or my scar or the stretch marks on my breasts? And if he had looked at me and said "yeah--you're good enough for me" it would have bound me emotionally to him. It really would have. He never would have been enough for me, but it would still have glued me to him for a while. But that physical vulnerability and sharing is nothing compared to the emotional. Lot's of women have stretch marks. They even sell different things for dealing with them. And intellectually, I believe lots of women have the psychic stretch marks from feminism and yearning for acceptance and MTV and high-school popularity contests and being mocked and believing ourselves to be unlovable, if only for a brief, fleeting moment, and all the things that defined us. But it lives in the shadows. Unknown and unembraced. Maybe it is too much to ask to share that with a romantic partner. I don't know.