I have lost my way

I started blogging back in 2006 on LiveJournal because I enjoy writing and it was a good way to share pieces of my day with friends. The blog was public but I knew the only ones reading were the handful of friends with whom I had shared the URL. The writing was more of a storytelling nature and felt intimate. A few of those posts were some of my favorite pieces of writing ever. The connections and comments on that blog were strong and real.

Then, I began to see new readers leaving comments and we started communicating between our blogs and in email. They became as important to me as my ‘real’ friends. And when I moved here to Reflecting on WordPress, everyone from LJ, as well as some lovely new friends came with me. The relationships grew stronger and the writing with it. Everything I came across in a day was potential blog fodder. I would jot down notes and reminders on anything handy because the post ideas came seemingly out of thin air. It was the most fun I have had writing.

Now, there are days when I feel like a stranger on my own blog. I have lost some online friends along the way, comments are down, and the writing is sparse. The connection has been lost. I like to joke that Twitter ate my blog post but am I really that far off? Twitter and Facebook get my immediate attention and the people who ‘follow’ me there are more likely to know what I am going through than this blog is. My time tends to be spent there, where interaction is more immediate, because I still crave that connection.

I worry that this blog is going to die of neglect but at the same time, I don’t know what to share here anymore. I can go on writing the occasional book review and recipe post with a handful of ‘what am I going to do with my life’ posts thrown in for good measure…oh wait, no I can’t. I’m over the angst-filled days and sleepless nights. So what is left?

Inspiration is out there, I know it. I am just struggling to find what it is that will light the fire in my writing and make this the place it used to be. Or better. I want this to be a place that readers find amusing, enlightening, and affirmative. I want to improve my skills, hone my style, and find joy in pursuing a passion.

But above all, I just want to stop feeling like a stranger here.

On the other side

The clouds have parted and my mood has lifted. Through a serendipitous series of events culminating in a most enlightening conversation Saturday night, my mid-life crisis has abated. My searching is over, my helplessness gone. I feel…new. I am no longer seeking for something outside myself or worrying about what might lie around the corner. It is as though I have been dropped into a new environment where I suddenly know the rules and can see farther than ever before.

This probably does not make sense and I admit to feeling completely inadequate in describing what I am feeling. I spent hours last night trying to put into words what the experience was like but it was not possible. Perhaps, by design, this type of event, this epiphany of sorts, is not meant to be expressed to others, rather everyone must experience it for themselves. Though I had wanted to share it here so that someone else might not struggle as long as I did, my only hope now is that when you are in the same situation that you have someone as gentle and considerate and persistent as I had to lead you through.

Thank you, my dear friend, for being there for me. You listened when I needed to talk, led when I needed to follow, and pushed when I needed pushed. I will be forever grateful.

Happy birthday, VD’O!

Dear Man of My Dreams (Literally. It is embarrassing really.),

Happy 50th birthday! I have watched almost every one of your films (the few remaining are in the queue) and ALL of your Law and Order: Criminal Intent episodes over and over and over again (I am particularly fond of the 2003-2004 years) and I love you even more today than the day you first made me swoon in Mystic Pizza 21 (gasp!) years ago. There is just something about your eyes, your shoulders, your hands (oh man, those hands) that makes me very happy. Let’s not even go there with your butt in Mystic Pizza or your abs in Feeling Minnesota. Or was it the other way around? No matter, honey, you were smoking.

Did you know drool ruins a keyboard? So I’ve heard. I have no empirical evidence.

Have a wonderful birthday and 50 more entertaining years. And please do NOT be the next 50 year old celebrity to kick it this month. I would just lie down and die myself. And nobody wants that. I have fans too, you know.

Love and kisses,

The Woman of Your Dreams (in mine anyway)

What’s the difference?

My sister and I are very different people. We always have been. As children, our differences were easy to spot. My room was always neat and clean. Hers looked like a tornado touched down in it. I brought home report cards with all As. Hers looked like alphabet soup. I woke early, usually singing or laughing. She complained when “the sun woke her up” at 2 o’clock in the afternoon and was surly the rest of the day as a result. She was rowdy and outgoing and I was quiet and bookish.

We are different, my sister and I.

Nowadays, the differences may not be quite as apparent from the outside. We have grown to look a little more alike and we have the same wicked sense of humor. We wear our hearts on our sleeves and yet are two of the strongest people I know. We love each other without bounds but can only tolerate small doses of each other at a time. We see the world so completely differently. If you have been reading here for a while, you know that I am pretty liberal and an avid supporter of equality, human and animal rights, and conserving and protecting our planet. If you took a photo of what you perceive my heart and soul to be, the negative of it would be my sister’s. I love her, I do, but we could not be farther apart on religion, politics or personal philosophies. Please note, I am not implying either of us is good or bad, just different.

I have always wondered how two people who were raised in the same house, with the same parents, turned out so differently. Were we simply born with different personalities or were our experiences and environments really as similar as I would have believed?

Reading parenting blogs has made me think about this again. I am not sure if the mom and pop bloggers themselves even realize it, but they have become different people over the years and as they add children to the household. It is evident in their writing.

The first child has parents who are intent and attentive, almost to the point of obsessive. Every squeak, burp, and diaper change is analyzed. Everything that is showered on that child is new, or at least new to the family,…toys, books, clothes, the nursery room furniture. Videos and photos are taken at every occasion and Tuesday can be an occasion. The first child also gets to be victim to rookie parenting mistakes once in a while but overall, the first child is the sun and the moon for the parents.

Then child number two (or three or four) comes along and while still loved and adored and cared for with great tenderness, it is different. The parents know what they are getting into this time. Not every day is an eye-opening event. Some of the things that the first child had are reused for this child. Videos and photos are still taken but not as many, not as often. Let’s face it, the parents are tired. And child number one is still out there, exploring, growing, and reaching all sorts of new milestones that fascinate and awe.

Of course, you know I am oversimplifying and generalizing here. Not every situation plays out like this but I think you would agree that parents do change as they mature in the role. My point being, my sister and I were raised in the same house, yes, but I no longer naively believe we were raised by the same parents. Not only were our parents three and a half years into the gig by the time my sister came along, there were other factors as well.

Dad is a first born and I am his first born. Now consciously or not, I think that gave us a bond that he just couldn’t have with my sister. He had a lot of responsibility as a child in his family and I think he wanted to instill in me that same sense of what it means to be the oldest sibling. He taught me from a young age what it means to be in charge, be accountable and work hard so we spent a lot of time together. Mom is the third child in her family and was told from the beginning that she wasn’t wanted. Dad didn’t want to have a second child with my mother. Who doesn’t think that our parents’ relationships with my sister, the second born, wouldn’t be colored by that?

In the previous post where I talked about my dad and gave you a glimpse into our relationship is an example. That dad is not the dad my sister knows. My sister has no such memories and does not have that kind of father-daughter relationship from which to draw strength. She and my dad have always been at odds. Likewise, my mother and I had a tumultuous relationship and she and my sister were very close. In our childhood home, it was always two against two.

And just to throw a monkey wrench into what you may be thinking right now, as adults, I am exactly like our mother in temperament and character and she is exactly like our father. You did not expect that, did you? How does life work that way?

What I would like to figure out is, are my sister and I different today because we were just born with different personalities or did our parents mold us in to two different people with the subtle and not so subtle ways in which they treated us differently? I imagine it is a combination of the two.

What do you think? Are you and your siblings more alike or very different? How much do you think is caused by your innate personalities and how much by your upbringing?

Congratulations, it’s…not a boy

My great-great-grandfather’s first child was a son, whom he christened with the same first name as himself. And that son’s first child was a son, who was given the same first name. And that son’s first child was a son, who was given the same first name. And that son’s first child was…me. And for those keeping track, I am most definitely not a son nor are any of my paternal relatives named Debra.

I think I was about six years old when my aunt (who was only a year older than I and very definitely jealous of my ‘first grandchild’ status versus her ‘last of eight children’ status) told me the history of this lineage and how I had messed up everything by being a girl. “Your dad was very disappointed when you were born,” she said with authority, as if she would have been old enough to recall such a thing.

I didn’t say anything to anyone about our conversation, partly because I hoped it wasn’t true and partly because I was afraid it was. I did, however, ask my mother once what my name would have been, had I been born a boy. She answered with a first and middle name, the first being the same as that of my father. My heart sunk into my stomach. My aunt had been right. I did mess up everything by being born a girl.

My dad was my world at that age. The pain I imagined him bearing because he did not have a son was crushing to me. I think that was the first time my heart was broken.
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I was about 16 years old when my father and his brothers decided to go to a Blues hockey game the week of Christmas. They were all going to be in town at the same time and they love anything to do with St. Louis so it seemed like a good brother bonding thing to do. As fate would have it, each of my uncles’ first born children was a boy (isn’t fate hilarious?) and one of my uncles thought it would be a really great idea to make it a father-son outing. Initiate the sons into the manly world of ice rinks and finger foods and what-not.

I was standing in the dining room at my grandmother’s, out of sight of the men in the living room, when I heard my Dad respond that he wouldn’t go if it was going to be a father-son thing but if they wanted to make it a father-first born thing, he was all for it. “You can’t take her, she’s a girl,” one uncle remarked. “She’s going,” my dad said, with that first-born voice of authority he had inherited with the name.

That night, on the way home, I finally gathered the courage to ask my dad if he was disappointed in my being born a girl. He didn’t cry but he did have to clear his throat before answering. “You have always been everything I ever wanted in a child. You could never disappoint me. Ever.”

And that’s the last time we talked about it.

The hockey game was great, I think. I don’t remember a lot of the details. We saw a lot of fights, a little blood, and had some great nachos. I don’t remember who the Blues played or if they won. But I was there. With my dad. And that’s all that mattered.
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Happy Father’s Day to all my online dad friends today. Your children may not remember the details of every moment but they will remember that you were there. And that you never looked at them with disappointment. Love and good memories to you and your families.