As a neurodivergent writer with a limited capacity for sustained concentration, I’ve left a trail of blogs and other writings to wither. My lost children, or seedlings (some I loved more than others, as parents often do).
I sometimes spy on those who (somehow) survived. Some served a specific purpose for a time. Others: experiments and one-night stands; also, innovations at night made hideous by daybreak.
Metaphorically, I am a woman on the road, like Legs from Foxfire (1996), or even Large Marge. A woman on the run — like Thelma & Louise with a splash of Rachel Flax.
Generally, folks on the move are considered empty and/or sad. (Unless they’re in college.) Running away from, rather than towards, a thing/a home/a family/a career.
But is this distinction fair or true? Of course, it’s a matter of opinion, and never a big “T” Truth. But it’s a cultural distinction that feels rooted, nonetheless; reflected in movies, on Facebook, and via self-help stuff:
“You can’t run away from your problems.”
”You must face them now, or risk meeting them later.”
”You can’t escape the past.”
”You are doomed to repeat your mistakes.”
”And your mother’s mistakes, and your grandmother’s.”
”You can run, but not very long.”
Fine, then. You asked for it. All the blood and glory of this past year, plunging eyes-first into the stuff you long to know, even if it paralyzes or haunts or kills you. What stones will we overturn; what parasitic bottom-feeders have died or multiplied. Or maybe they’ve evolved — grown gills and hands, and teeth like crop circles.
I never stay anywhere long enough to change the wallpaper or choose drapes and tiles, unpack all my boxes, or get to know my neighbours.
Not since LiveJournal, my first online haunt.
I’m sure I spent more time on my LiveJournal page than I did IRL. It’s where I (really) learned to write. As in, the repetitive process of doing a thing over and over again, which is, I am dismayed to find, the only way to learn, grow, evolve, expand. And NOT, it turns out, the marker of insanity. Pfft.
Then Facebook tossed a hand grenade into the mix, and bloggers were encouraged to use real names instead of (cute/clever) handles, and swap our cartoon avatars with photos of our actual faces. AND create and share what I can only describe as lifestyle content:
Be a person. Be yourself. Post about your vacation (with pics), your first day of school (the smell of a fresh-cracked anatomy text), your bestie (using an iPhone, with filters and angles and puckered “duck” lips), and your selfie (like a self-portrait, but less thought-out).
We traded our (precocious) anonymity for the safety and transparency of a grainy self-portrait and our legal name.
It’s 2022, pals. Another blog?? So I sat on it. In silence and suffering. Like sitting on a stovetop on LOW (pants on, of course).
Like that awful metaphor about the slow-boiling frog, who turns into frog’s legs on some pig’s plate. Hey Pig. Don’t you know they’re eating you, too??!
But the pig doesn’t care. At least, he gets his. For most of us, it’s not kill or be killed. It’s kill & be killed.
Welcome, in other words, to my nightmare.