November 01, 2005
Brain Matter
Eight million pixels = no uploading photos from work, but they are coming, folks. Oh boy are they coming.
In non-image related news (en dash!), I'm sure there's a quote out there that gracefully and succinctly captures the sentiment that a happy person is she who wakes up every day excited to be a part of the world. I know, I know, in the past few months this blog has become a veritable Velveeta factory, what with the cheesy warm goo oozing from every pore, but excuse me for being bliss personified. It happens sometimes, this finding the love of your life, you know?
After filling out that meme last week, I thought a little harder than usual about what it is I do here in this space--what it means, what it should mean, and why and how much I should care. This journal is one part personal record--something to be kept under my mattress and read years down the line--but it is also part megaphone, projecting my tiny voice and tiny thoughts and tiny life onto a larger screen for others to view. (How do you like them mixed metaphors?) When writing for the web, how much do I monologue out loud and how much do I storytell? And what stories are even worth telling? And who cares and does that matter?
If I had a less-cryptic stats program, primary-color pie charts and bar graphs would probably reveal that my readership jumped dramatically in the weeks after Ethan and I broke up. Here was Little Miss Secure and Independent angling at a curveball with a rubber bat, and ooh, look at her swing! They were dark times, those, but they were also fertile soil. And because those times were the same shade of dark that many other people had, have, and will know in their own lives, in thinking out loud about my personal drama, I was adding to the great body of Figuring It Out literature, and hopefully I was helping someone along the way.
I wonder now how this new life of extraordinary happiness has pulled on the narrative arc of my story and made it seem like I've achieved closure, completed the circle. Even though this site started as a journal about my life with a certain boy, was its overarching message ultimately about being without a boy and wanting desperately to find one? I hope not. I hope I am more than just a character in a story. I hope my life reads like life and not like a soap opera. I hope that this secular paradise doesn't seem stagnant, that my emotional range doesn't feel flat. I am an easygoing, content, and happy person by nature (what you met a year and a half ago wasn't me; it was me in crisis) and my smile is to be believed 100 percent. Maybe this makes me less interesting, maybe it breeds resentment, maybe it smacks of sugarcoated fiction.
But the truth is, this is how I am. I rub noses with my boyfriend on public transportation. I think about what we'll cook first in his new crockpot and what dishes we'll serve it on. I think about how damn lucky I am to have all of my outrageous affection met kiss for kiss by someone with whom I am infinitely comfortable yet still as flirty and crushy on as I've ever been. I want everyone to see and understand with depth what I am a part of. But is that goal realistic? And is it interesting? Something tells me that there are far more people out there who have dealt with heartbreak than with true love, and I ask myself, "Self? Would people rather read a blog about which they can say, 'What a lucky girl! I'm so happy for her,' or is there more comfort in commiseration, in 'I know exactly how you feel'? Unanswerable questions, to be sure, but sometimes those are the ones most worth asking.
I guess that's what I've got today. I'm in love, I adore writing about it for you, and I thank you all for reading, even if happiness is a turn-off and you never come back.
I'm not going anywhere, I like it here.
Posted by: Jenny at November 1, 2005 04:47 PMHappiness a turn off? HECK no.
Posted by: beck at November 1, 2005 05:20 PMYou and your man make me smile. I am charmed by your happiness...I'm also a grandmother so I can write stuff like 'charmed' and mean it.
Posted by: Lin at November 1, 2005 05:36 PMHappiness is never a turn-off and I'll still come back if it ever becomes one.
Posted by: Shirley at November 1, 2005 06:30 PMI am so glad that you are happy again. That is what I wish for you forever.
Posted by: violetismycolor at November 1, 2005 06:58 PMIt wouldn't matter if you wrote about septic boils, you write so well. Reading this site brightens my day.
Posted by: Catherine at November 2, 2005 12:59 AMWhatever you write about, you write it genuinely and well, and that will always keep me(and apparently us) coming back for more.
Amen sister!
We all will continue to return and read what you've got to say, because as, Catherine, said herself, you write so well. And let me be honest here, I'm often a little jealous at just how well you can describe things when the chances are, I've been trying to explain the exact same thing to myself for weeks, yet wasn't able to articulate it anywhere near as well as you. (That's meant to be a compliment even though it came out kind of weird.)
You're fab, Leah. I'm definitely happy that you've got the nose rubbing, crockpot cooking, and kissing, kissing, kissing love. Everybody deserves it. True happiness is blissful, and I'm looking forward to read more about it.
Posted by: Sam at November 2, 2005 05:22 AMSee, I'm in that exact same boat.
Lately when I write, it's all gushy and cutesy and relatively gross, but I can't even imagine finding accurate words to describe how I actually feel, nor am I swept up in anything else at the moment.
Keep it coming, girlie. I love reading about it almost as much as I love living in it. And hell, even if everyone goes away, we still have the velveeta...
Posted by: angie at November 2, 2005 05:47 AMI am all too often little more than an ip address in your logs, leaving too few comments for someone who became a daily read for me a long time ago.
The unapologetic way in which you share yourself touched me long ago. You have had bad days and you have had good days. You don't blame others for the bad that has happened, and you need not apologize for enjoying life.
So long as you continue to use share your voice on the ol' interweb you will have at least one devoted reader.
Posted by: Charlie Gordon at November 2, 2005 06:31 AMTrust me, it's a quandary I faced. You'd be hard pressed to find more explosively in-love content on the web than when Stuart and I met. Yet, my most-long-time readers got somewhat put off by how mushy it was around there. Mostly, I think, not because anyone is evil or cynical or black-hearted. But simply because of this.
Pain and crisis are things to share. They are things that demand, require, beg for assistance. When you write about them publicly, people cannot help but reach out and attempt to help, which in turn, makes the writer feel better, less alone.
But love between two people, newfound love, well, it doesn't require any of us, Leah. It doesn't require anything of the reader except, well, reading. And your readers (and mine) can do nothing more than be happy for you (and me), but on a very difficult-to-admit selfish level, it makes us (the readers) less important in your blogger-reader relationship.
This sounds cruel and cynical and I'm sure many of your loyal readers will disagree and cry that they do love reading about your happiness, and of COURSE they (we) do. But the relationship has changed.
It's normal, what you're struggling with about your blog. Love is the one thing which rarely needs anything more than two people. Pain, on the other hand, takes a village.
Posted by: krissa at November 2, 2005 07:50 AMI have enjoyed reading your blog over the last few months. Yes, it has evolved and changed but so do people, that is to be expected. You are writing about what is most current in your life and it is good to know that people move forward in their lives and even find a new love after such a hard loss.
Posted by: Sari at November 2, 2005 08:00 AMYou guys rock. One million gold stars for everyone!
Posted by: Leah at November 2, 2005 09:52 AMWow, I'm glad, I was really pretty sure that either the entire world would fall asleep during my long comment (which I obviously should have emailed to you) or hate me forever.
Posted by: krissa at November 2, 2005 12:15 PMyou totally deserve this (and even more!) happiness. please continue to spread it all around - i love stopping by your blog - it never fails to bring a smile to my face :)
Posted by: jess at November 2, 2005 01:26 PM
