NOTHING TO SEE HERE
Wow.
Okay, I need to begin by saying that everything is FINE. Really and truly.
On the one hand, I should be flattered. Correction: I AM flattered. I cannot begin to tell you how many emails I have received this past week regarding the last two updates here. People - friends and family alike - wishing me well, and giving me words of encouragement.
But, I have to say, I keep going back and re-reading all the emails you've sent to me and I think I have given you all the wrong impression. By the sounds of it, you all seem to think I am sitting on the floor at the foot of my bed, curled up in the fetal position, sobbing hysterically with a gun positioned on the side of my brain.
I've been a bit down in the dumps lately. Which can happen, especially when I get sick and my life gets thrown off-kilter for a week and a half. And I've been reflective. And nostalgic. And thinking about the good old days. And thinking about more recent days, when there is time that has been wasted. And...it makes me sad.
But I feel like I need to state this for the record: I'm okay! I am not suicidal. Just bummin' out a little. It happens to all of us.
Doesn't it?
The difference is that I am putting it out there, by publishing it here. And publishing my private, innermost thoughts in such a public manner is a choice that I have made. It has come back to bite me in the past and more than likely will do so again in the future for as long as I continue to live publicly, but that is the risk I take. I am a gambler, by nature.
I've been writing on this blog since...wow, since November of 2003. This place is special to me. It is my solace; it is my therapy. It is my own private diary, exept that it is BETTER. Better, and worse. Better, because I can get feedback by journaling in this format. The feedback that I have received because of this blog has been some vital, important therapy. Keeping this blog is probably the only thing that kept me sane when I was dealing with the toughest period of my life. I felt a little less alone in my struggle, and I had found a network of people who "got it" - they completely understood the pain I was dealing with because they were experiencing it, too.
Over the years, I have also received negative feedback. I've been ripped to shreds by people, mostly anonymously, and I have been called nearly every name in the book. I have felt low and then received a comment on my blog that has sent me spiraling into total depression, leaving me in a really BAD place. But, that is the risk I take by being "public." And over the past five to six years of writing, the good has definitely outweighed the bad. Worth keeping the blog alive and well? Hell, yeah.
But after the emails I received this week, I can't help but have a few moments where I start to think that maybe I shouldn't be so open here; maybe I should shut the blog down and keep some of these thoughts in my head, or at the very least in a private written journal kept tucked under the bed.
But for now, that isn't going to work for me. For now, I need this blog again. Albeit for different reasons than when I first started writing so many years ago, but I do need it. And if putting my feelings down, in writing, for all of the internets to see makes me run the risk of coming off a bit "crazy?" So be it.
I'm not crazy. I'm not morbidly depressed. I am just feeling reflective. I see my life veering off-course, just a bit, and I am trying to figure out not only HOW that happened but what I can to do get it back on track. And when all these thoughts start cluttering up my brain, I start typing...hoping to sort them out and maybe get a little clarity.
Maybe doing it this way IS crazy. I don't know? What I do know is that blogging works for me, so for now I am going to keep doing it.
And you know what? Maybe YOU are the crazy one, for continuing to read this.
Think about it.
(just kidding).
Okay, I need to begin by saying that everything is FINE. Really and truly.
On the one hand, I should be flattered. Correction: I AM flattered. I cannot begin to tell you how many emails I have received this past week regarding the last two updates here. People - friends and family alike - wishing me well, and giving me words of encouragement.
But, I have to say, I keep going back and re-reading all the emails you've sent to me and I think I have given you all the wrong impression. By the sounds of it, you all seem to think I am sitting on the floor at the foot of my bed, curled up in the fetal position, sobbing hysterically with a gun positioned on the side of my brain.
I've been a bit down in the dumps lately. Which can happen, especially when I get sick and my life gets thrown off-kilter for a week and a half. And I've been reflective. And nostalgic. And thinking about the good old days. And thinking about more recent days, when there is time that has been wasted. And...it makes me sad.
But I feel like I need to state this for the record: I'm okay! I am not suicidal. Just bummin' out a little. It happens to all of us.
Doesn't it?
The difference is that I am putting it out there, by publishing it here. And publishing my private, innermost thoughts in such a public manner is a choice that I have made. It has come back to bite me in the past and more than likely will do so again in the future for as long as I continue to live publicly, but that is the risk I take. I am a gambler, by nature.
I've been writing on this blog since...wow, since November of 2003. This place is special to me. It is my solace; it is my therapy. It is my own private diary, exept that it is BETTER. Better, and worse. Better, because I can get feedback by journaling in this format. The feedback that I have received because of this blog has been some vital, important therapy. Keeping this blog is probably the only thing that kept me sane when I was dealing with the toughest period of my life. I felt a little less alone in my struggle, and I had found a network of people who "got it" - they completely understood the pain I was dealing with because they were experiencing it, too.
Over the years, I have also received negative feedback. I've been ripped to shreds by people, mostly anonymously, and I have been called nearly every name in the book. I have felt low and then received a comment on my blog that has sent me spiraling into total depression, leaving me in a really BAD place. But, that is the risk I take by being "public." And over the past five to six years of writing, the good has definitely outweighed the bad. Worth keeping the blog alive and well? Hell, yeah.
But after the emails I received this week, I can't help but have a few moments where I start to think that maybe I shouldn't be so open here; maybe I should shut the blog down and keep some of these thoughts in my head, or at the very least in a private written journal kept tucked under the bed.
But for now, that isn't going to work for me. For now, I need this blog again. Albeit for different reasons than when I first started writing so many years ago, but I do need it. And if putting my feelings down, in writing, for all of the internets to see makes me run the risk of coming off a bit "crazy?" So be it.
I'm not crazy. I'm not morbidly depressed. I am just feeling reflective. I see my life veering off-course, just a bit, and I am trying to figure out not only HOW that happened but what I can to do get it back on track. And when all these thoughts start cluttering up my brain, I start typing...hoping to sort them out and maybe get a little clarity.
Maybe doing it this way IS crazy. I don't know? What I do know is that blogging works for me, so for now I am going to keep doing it.
And you know what? Maybe YOU are the crazy one, for continuing to read this.
Think about it.
(just kidding).
