Trimming the Fat vs. Tried and True
There are always changes in life. Some change is bad. Some change is good. Some changes we control with the decisions we make. Some changes just happen to us.
I deleted my Twitter weeks ago. I liked it a lot. I still do. I just did not like that I had to basically keep a window or tab open all the time I was using/reading it. There are some great browser plugins and blog plugins to aid in the twittering. But I either never really got Twitter or Twitter never really got me. I had some followers and I followed a few twits Twitterers. But it gave me that junior high feeling (”why am I always the one responding to others and not being the one being responded to). It’s OK though. It just was not my community. I wanted it to be. I did. I thought I could make it my community, but I realized that I did not need a community that was not mine.
That was a change I made. That was a change based on my decision that I had too much online stuff that was not necessarily worth my time. The change has been good. We’ll call that Trimming the Fat.
I’m not getting all down and out and depressed here, I’m just stating some facts about this blogging world. I got on with this blogging thing a few years ago to speak my mind and heart. I wanted to do it totally anonymously, but I got found. As a result of being found I have often struggled with many things that I want to write about. I started blogging to air my head and my thoughts (like Dumbledore’s pensieve). I had intended to tell one close friend about my blog and then just sort of leave it be. I didn’t use my real name. I still don’t know how I was discovered, but it happened. I often struggle, even now, with whether or not I should blog something. I need my own community. I have no community to which I belong. Being the wife of a pastor is being a wife to a different breed, or better yet, being a different breed. I am scrutinized more than any one else I know because of what my husband does for a profession (no, he does not do this for a living). Did I choose this? No, but it is what I believe is what God planned for me. I live in a glass house. Being the mother of a special needs child often puts me in the spot light to be closely scrutinized for the situations with my child with special needs. Did I choose this? No. I live in a glass house. To have friends in the church is great, but there is always a level of needing to keep a certain amount of space between me and the congregation (as a whole or as an individual with whom I interact). I live in a glass house. My every move is seen and judged. I live in a glass house. I must explain every move I make. Or at least feel like I must. I live in a glass house. We live in a glass house and still the whole life is not visible to those who sit and peer in. We live in a glass house and still no one knows our lives like we do. We live in a glass house and everyone thinks they deserve to know. We live in a glass house and everyone thinks they know.
I wanted my blog to be a place with walls that were not made of glass. I guess I must accept this as something that is just a part of my glass house. I guess I will embrace it. Maybe. I still hope to keep myself a bit of an unknown. Maybe anything new in my life can be kept separate from here, maybe not. If anyone looks hared enough they could make a connection. I have been working hard in the background to keep a links distance from my husband’s blog. Some of you may have noticed I have been removing links here and there to his blog. He knows. We have discussed it. He understands. He agrees. I am not out to discuss this person or that person or talk about anyone behind their back. I will admit though that as life happens within the church, or with neighbors, or with that guy at Waldemort (who thought it would be just fine and unnoticeable that he was peeing on a truck tire in plain view in the parking lot) I often get hit with a spark of though that may turn into a blog post. Situational aspects of my life are bloggable.
Community is not about what you think you know.
After blogging for a bit I discovered a few other bloggers and really began to crave the interaction with others via the blogging platform. See, I had just been through hell and back when I started blogging. It was after the big swarm of turmoil in my life — the volcanic eruption that my entire life was leading up to. Do you know what it is like when you know something is coming, something bad? Not everyone will understand that question clearly enough to answer it properly, with the same amount of weight it was written. It is not the same thing as watching a movie and hearing the music and noticing the lighting change and the mood shift and your body begins to prepare for that moment when the bad guy is going to inevitably jump out and scare you so bad you pee your pants. Maybe it is the same. No. No, it is not. It is not the same as knowing for years, knowing since I was a young child of about nine that this would happen. It was not some self-fulfilling prophecy. It was just knowing, that at some point in my life, my family would hit that point. The point that either it would be an open book or I would have to bare the burden alone. I knew it was going to happen. I wish I had known when, and where, and how it was going to happen. I prayed that I was wrong, but as I saw the lives of my parents and siblings unfold it would happen and I knew it would not be pleasant.
I had warned my husband of the dangers of marrying me before he married me. I gave him and out. I practically begged him to run away, far, far away. He thought I was exaggerating. Until the day it happened. Until the day it began rearing it’s big ugly head in preparation for the strike. He was in Birmingham and I was in Hattiesburg, making a few preparatory plans for our December wedding when it began. He, again, thought I was just being a woman and being stressed by the preparations. As he relayed what was going on to his mother, she saw it. She got it, but didn’t realize the scope of just how big it was.
After we were married it continued, but differently. I had seen it, dealt with it, lived it my entire life. SmockDaddy was not sure what was going on. So not sure of what was going on that he really did not do anything about it. He left it with, “I’ll deal with my family and you deal with yours”. but what he did not see was how there were so many attempts to pit the two of us against each other so that the control was not ours. So when something happened and I responded, the response so strongly seemed like an over-reaction to the situation. I was pushed over and he was welcomed. But I already knew that his welcome was based on lies. They did not want me to marry him. This was even told to me, by one or more members of my family.
See, I knew what was happening. Even if they did not. I don’t mean I knew exactly what what playing out, but I spent my whole life experiencing my life and friends being used against me when were unknowing pawns. Having a husband was a new twist. And he got played, mostly, but not completely. This is not the post for the gory details of those particular ten years. What matters at this point is that on March 23rd, 2004 the monster asleep in the bottom of the volcano began to awaken. I had just spent ten years married and allowing the Tried and True to guide my responses and my decisions and my actions or lack thereof. Although, Tried and True was mixed with someone else I had to protect.
I never knew the situation, for lack of a better word, was tied to your birthday. I think that would make it worse. CancerMan received his diagnosis a few days before our 16th wedding anniversary and now the two things are forever tied together.
To your point about community, sometimes community looks different than we think and as long as you have one, I don’t think it matters so much as to how it looks.
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Smocks–
I have a sun room on the back of my house that reminds me of your glass house, and my plants really like it. They flourish and grow in it. I appreciate your honest in all these matters, even though it’s not that easy to talk about. I don’t say much on your blog, but I regularly read what you have to say, and I enjoy your musings.
Have a great Easter!
Erin L. (formerly of H’burg now in TX)
I wish there were some way for me to help. Hang in there. Thinking of and praying for you.
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