Blogging

You know, one of the great things about blogging, and about journaling in general, is that it helps you to look back and see what you were thinking a few years, months or even weeks ago. I have kept a journal since I was 10 years old — a “gift” set, which was a purple journal with white flowers, complete with a matching box and a tiny silver key (I earned it by selling cards and trinkets to my neighbors — I was an awesome salesman as a kid, probably why I refuse to sell anything now. I sold almost as many boxes of Girl Scout cookies going door-to-door on foot as my friends did whose parents drove them). Anyway, I started that journal much as I started my blog, by which I mean that I really had no idea what I wanted to say. By the time I finished it I was pouring my heart out — not realizing that my lock was pretty much useless until I started seeing smug grins from my parents (I had a crush on their best friend’s son, who was 5 years older than me. At 12 that was an unbelievable chasm).

I have always found journaling much easier than real writing, probably because I don’t care if I bore the heck out of anyone. I sit down to write a real story and my heart pounds; what could I possibly say that would be riveting to the general public? But I find that sometimes I say things better, or at least more naturally, as I blog. For example, I can be a lot grosser on a blog than I can be in real person (well, mostly). Every day naughty thoughts float through my head as I walk delicately through normal conversation. I’m not sure if I am just neurotic or if this is normal, but if our thoughts save or damn us…you can guess where I’m going. When I blog, however, it’s easier to let those thoughts out, probably because I don’t get to see my readers’ reaction and feel bad. I try not to think of my lovely, perfect sister-in-law reading my blog, because if I did I would probably freeze up and never write another word, and then I would implode from the pressure. I know she reads it. She’s probably reading this right now. I just can’t think about it.

I know she reads it because last week she told me she reads it. Last week Marti and I went to Texas. I’m sorry there are no pictures but, despite the fact that we raced around looking for the camera to pack, it lived in our suitcase during the whole trip. It was a wedding, which is usually an event that calls for pictures, but no, no, we were selfish and just sat around eating cake, ignoring the perfect shots of our little neices throwing rose petals, or the youngest one, who is 2 years old, stopping in the aisle to pick up the petals and put them back in the basket. You could almost see her brain working, thinking, “They make me a pretty silk dress and my job is to pick up the trash?” She was so naughty and sassy and adorable we wanted to take her home with us. Her older sister is also as beautiful, but she is a nice, well-behaved child that never causes anyone any trouble, and as much as I love both of them, I have a special place in my heart for the naughty one. This is very wrong of me, I know. I can’t help it.

The most amazing thing about the trip was how well I got along with everyone, including my mother-in-law. Let me tell you — the MIL and I had a few rough years. I can understand, because I was 25 and Marti was 21 when we got married, and it must have looked like statutory rape to my MIL. I personally hope my son waits until he’s 30, and preferably 50, before he starts dating. So the MIL and I quietly battled, or at least I thought we were quietly battling, for four years. I finally broke down and had a good fight with her and found out she’d stopped battling months and possibly years before, she just hadn’t alerted me to the fact that she no longer wished I would drop dead and leave her to find a good wife for her son. This is the first time since then we have visited Texas and I found that I really liked all of Marti’s family, and in fact had a fabulous time. It was eerie. Who likes their mother-in-law, anyway?

I’ve been looking back at some of my posts and remembering that the last five years have been pretty difficult ones for me regardless. I am no longer in the throes of depression, partly I think because I finally started dealing with issues like my relationship with my in-laws. I made some decisions about who I wanted to be and that helped a lot — marriage was a hard road for me, as I’ve always been so terribly independent. But I looked back on my post about depression, which seemed so measured and logical at the time, and now it seems like the ravings of a depressed woman avoiding anti-depressent medication. I can’t decide if I really have been that terribly depressed or if I just like to exaggerate. I have a deep fear of madness, partly because I think such weird thoughts while trying to navigate general conversation. Journaling and writing has always, in part, been in the realm of the slightly crazy, slightly artistic temperament and while I feel completely logical and stable, it has been mentioned occasionally that I sometimes end up on the fringes. But I wonder now if I should have taken the drugs, found the right mix, and gotten out of my depression six months earlier. My counselor didn’t find me terribly depressed — she found me terribly, terribly angry.

Why I was angry could fill many, many posts, but basically I needed to let go of a lot of things I didn’t really even know I was holding on to. Some people have another word for this act: forgiveness. I held grudges against everyone from the kids who teased me in 3rd grade to the professor who advised me to “do what you like” rather than be practical and go into engineering. This kind of grudge-holding is a madness in and of itself — a poison to the soul. Slowly but surely I am allowing myself to forgive others and, even harder to do, to forgive myself for not being perfect. Occasionally I get a wonderful tool for this, and my most recent one was the book Perfect Madness. I strove so hard to be the perfect stay-at-home mom that I made myself completely miserable and depressed and it is only now that I am working I can look back and see that.

I hope that I look back on this post someday and think, “Oh yeah, I’ve gotten over that and let myself be happy again,” rather than think, “Why wasn’t I taking the drugs?” I doubt I can get through life without lapsing into depression again, but I hope the next time I will be sensible enough to do what it takes to climb out again, even if it means forgiving my 3rd grade teacher for letting me get bullied by the other kids, or taking some meds to help me out of the rough spots. I have a long way to go still, I think. I feel guilty for almost everything in this world. Last night I bought a tube of Colgate toothpaste (animal testing) from Wal-Mart (it’s Wal-Mart) and tried not to feel like I was personally contributing to the evil of this world. Until I can give this up — this responsibility for everything and everyone — I think I will continue to struggle with sadness. How could I not? But I take babysteps. After all, I bought the toothpaste, non-recyclable packaging and all. I can’t save the world, it’s not in my job description, and this is the first thing I try to forgive myself for. It’s a kind of selfishness, I suppose, another way of being in the center of the universe, this striving to be perfect, and I start by forgiving myself for not being perfect, and then extending that forgiveness to other humans who are simply that — human. It’s amazing how forgiveness doesn’t heal others, but ourselves.

And that’s a little crazy in itself.