The Trouble with Consistency...or Something Like That...

So, there you are, blogging your life and then a bunch of stuff goes down and it makes all that blogging stuff fall right off the plate for quite a long time. And while you aren't blogging you are finding yourself on the other side of a whole crazy litany of events that have changed you in all kinds of ways, some big and some little.

And then the dust settles just enough that you want to start to write again but you realize that you just don't have it in you to try and build a bunch of bridges and fill in a bunch of gaps and...well...you just don't know how to be cohesive.

That's a problem with blogs. It's like a novel that never ends but maybe it's really supposed to be five novels, or 1 novel, a comic strip, a tv mini series, a folk song and a couple op ed pieces for your local paper. But it's a blog and what does that mean? I've already mused as an Antwatcher, slayed a few Dragons, let my inner snark play with the Daily Dope Slap (forgot about that one, didn't you?), nudged Michael along on the mostly dormant Rolling Rishi...do I start all over again? New chapter, new blog?

And what about all those old posts that I take down when I do that and those emails that come from people years later asking if I can tell them how to find those writings (which sometimes don't exist anymore)? What loyalty do I have to have for my writings and my readers? How tied to the past does one become when you write your life for the world on the blog? Very? Not at all? Yesterday's news?

Not easy questions and I don't think there is anyone who really can answer them completely.

Well, one thing the blogging life has meant for me is that sometimes I imagine that I have a certain (possibly valid) understanding of your idea of who I am. That's kind of funny because I'm not even sure what you all are thinking at this point or who you even are unless you are Kate, Erin or Peter. It's just that I have this rather amorphous reader in my mind and I sometimes feel this odd sense of needing to at least be defineable enough so that amorphous anonymous reader's perspective on me or opinions about me might make sense and carry a certain validity (especially if they have a positive opinion about me).

I know that sounds kind of whacked but I also submit to you that I  have done some darn personal writing on my blogs over the years so that feeling of being a little naked and insecure about which direction to go and why is one I think it makes sense to have.

So, I tossed out a question, or a series of them, in the last post...a little "helloooo...anyone out there?  Should I keep at this? Pick it up again?" And I got a "yes".  And that's kind of helpful and kind of not. Yes what? Yes why? Yes for whom?

But what Kate said at FB helped a bit more. She reminded me that my audience may well change over time. The people who were with me back when I was a coach and ranting about marketing are likely a VERY different bunch than those who stuck with me through my Dad's illness. Those who were with me through my anticipatory grief writings when I was really in the thick of existential angst with Michael may have grown weary of my actual grief and left months ago.

But Kate also reminded me that there are those people who might be a little curious about what I have to say at this point. People who fantasize about running off to join monasteries or live in caves and just leave all this crap behind but somehow find themselves still here making mortgage payments and going to the grocery store on Saturdays and maybe spending a little more time than they would like to admit on Facebook. Sometimes they might even fall asleep in front of the TV like we swore we would never do when we watched our parents fall into that pattern.

And THAT is the rub, isn't it?

What is consistency? What is a cohesive life? How do you honor the sensitivities you have while living in a harsh world? What does that kind of balance look like?

So, maybe the truth is that I haven't been consistent. Sometimes I am very much in the world and sometimes I am an inch from running away to a monastery (and likely would have done that if not for having a wonderful husband). Some days I worry about money and the debt I've accumulated this past year and some days I feel like I am sitting in the king's storehouse reaping embarrassing good fortune. Somedays I feel very grounded and some days I have felt like a little lost lamb.

Those days are the hardest because those are also the days that I feel like I must be one sad disappointment to Michael. That's what Imposter Syndrome looks like on me now. A spiritual flunky.

I was SO joyful at Michael's funeral. Geniunely over the moon happy for him. He made it out without having to go into a hospital. No more surgeries. No return to a sip-and-puff chair (he mentioned his fear of that several times to me). No more winter. No more pneumonia. No more worries about how he was going to fix the Starship again. No more costly wheelchair repairs. No new helpers to train. No need to find someone to put him to bed if his scheduled attendant got the flu.

I have never, ever felt anything but good about the end of Michael's life. And I can tell you without the least hesistation that he is still with me. The problem, I realize, as I am writing this, isn't really about Michael. It's about the world.

I changed in one direction while the world seems to have been speeding off in another. I could try to run to rejoin it but there really isn't much tempting me. Even going out for dinner...going to a movie...a play...I am so aware of the costs of making money that I'd rather give all that up than let go of the freedoms of my life.

That's one of the reasons that last post was significant. If I can feel like a queen just having a $3 root beer float, why do I need a $50 dinner? What I would have to do to go back to eating out like that would mean giving up things like being home when Scott finds a praying mantis in the garden. It used to nearly kill me, working in a basement office where I never ever saw the sun. Now I can see it AND go step out into it.

Maybe I'm a lot like my Dad (actually, I am, no question). Not having money may mean I don't have access to health care that I might benefit from some day. Not working right now could actually be shortening my lifespan.

And I am okay with that because I know the value of today.

I am not saying that lightly or with any naivete.  My family was, and is, poor, for the most part. Scott came from nothing as well. They didn't even have consistent indoor plumbing.

I actually could live in a monastery. But the thing is, as much as I have stepped away from what is a typical life here in Chicagoland, this is still me home.

I'm not Ram Dass. I'm not going to go off to India. I don't want to sit in a train station and have dysentary. I am a suburban married woman with a highly sensitive chow chow. I'm neither famous enough, nor infamous enough to have any kind of safety net in life...no secret stash of money, no job, no anything really except that wonderful husband and the dog I love beyond reason, and a house that I miss the minute I leave it and sometimes a moment with a praying mantis or a buck in the marsh or some other insane moment that makes me feel like the luckiest woman who has ever lived.

So I'm the luckiest out-of-place person I know. My finaces would give most people ulcers. My daily events would bore most people to tears. Our (one) TV isn't HD. I don't have an ipod. My Mom sent me imported butter for my birthday and I am in heaven for having good butter. I've had buttered toast with sea salt every day since it arrived. It makes me feel like I did when I was a kid and tasted REAL butter for the first time. I'd rather have real butter than diamonds and that is the absolute truth.

Part of my task now is just living with the mind and perspective and sensitivities I have in the world as it is and doing that without having my guruji here to make me laugh at the folly every week. It's about my coming to some kind of terms with the pace of the world. The addiction to technology (starting with the Sony Walkman, which put us on a downward spiral we have never recovered from...), our removal from the natural world, the way our kids are getting poisoned in every possible manner...it's hard to be here, especially as a sensitive person who doesn't get out much...it's just so assaultive, the way we treat each other. And I'm as capable of being assaultive as anyone. As confused as anyone. As self-righteous as anyone.

I just don't want to be those things and Michael showed me I don't have to be. It just was so much easier when he was here to ram into me with his chair when I got too far off track.

So, consistency, maybe you don't get that here. Honesty. You'll get honesty here. That's about all I can say.

 

 

Comments

[Kate]

Consistency...bah humbug!
What you just wrote is consistent with who you are. And that's what I want from you, here on the blog, and wherever we cross paths. Consistency is in your reaching to be the best of who you are, even when you think you don't have a clue. You're shining a little light (sometimes BIG light) on the path we all want to walk...or ARE walking. And whatever audience has stuck around, or appeared as strangers out of the blue, will stay or go depending on THEM, not on you.

So, I say, when you're compelled to write, do it. When you're compelled into the garden, go. Some of us will be here whenever. Some of us will go and maybe then come back. You do what you do. And those of us with any sense at all will check in - often. And you'll come to know that what you bring to us is consistent with the whole woman that you are. And a lovely model to boot.

[Nancy]

Laura,

We may not be rich in dollars, but I would say that you are definitely rich in wisdom, abundance, friends, love, and joy. You are in tune to life like no one else I know. And I love that about you. Keep on being real here. That's exactly what we need!

Love you, birthday girl!
Nancy

[erin]

"So, maybe the truth is that I haven't been consistent. Sometimes I am very much in the world and sometimes I am an inch from running away to a monastery (and likely would have done that if not for having a wonderful husband). Some days I worry about money and the debt I've accumulated this past year and some days I feel like I am sitting in the king's storehouse reaping embarrassing good fortune. Somedays I feel very grounded and some days I have felt like a little lost lamb."

What you are, always are, even when you roll-crash into yourself now to get back on track, is true, L. True to yourself, true, as Kate says, to the whole. Don´t worry about being "consistent" here.....the honesty and integrity with which you come here, and openly live and tell the tale of those seeming "inconsistencies"...that's all of us. That´s what we need you to shine a mirror on, as only you do. We will be here when you bring back what you do from the garden, and the praying mantis, and Gary, and the camera lens.

[Laura]

Thank you...

[Nick Winter]

Two thoughts. On one hand I say blog when you feel inspired to do so and not be concerned about consistency. Is the expectation to be consistent coming from others or yourself? Is it really that important to be consistent? I'd prefer blog posts here and there to no blog at all. I never know when I might find a little gem of wisdom or insight in one of your posts. On the other hand, as I've learned from Caroline Myss, there is something to be said about being absolutely diligent about a practice, whether it be blogging or exercising or meditating or whatever. She grew up with a military father who influenced her to have a very strict work ethic and she says that is how she gets her writing done. She sits down at her desk every day whether she feels like it or not. She may not be in the mood to write each morning when she sits down at her desk but she creates the space for inspiration to come through. This probably applies more to book writing than blogs though. Blogs are more open ended.

[Laura]

Two thoughts, but not necessarily incompatible...it doesn't all have to be blog writing, but I do see that picking up writing in general does have its place for me...good thoughts to chew on. Thanks.

[Barbara]

Reading this post this morning was like finding a preying mantis in the yard.

Thank you.

[Laura]

Barbara, that is such a lovely thing to say. Thank you.