Over at Is There No Sin In It, AWB is contemplating the relationship between her blog persona and her ‘realworld’ persona. I too was wondering about the character I have created through this blogging process. AWB wonders if her blog persona is more troubled, paranoid and edgy than real life while I wonder the opposite. I tend to try to keep this blog fairly upbeat and while I do occasionally stray into a bit of ranting or a bit of misery I suspect I present a rather too benign version of myself. This is in part because I think that if I used this blog to record my paranoias, fears and self-dislikes there would be no stopping the descent into self-pity and chronic self-doubt. If I recorded my transgressions here they would some how become more fixed, real and permanent and there would be no chance of change or progress. Progress towards what, you might well ask. I suppose to the elusive ‘better person’ which I’m always trying to attain.
Sometimes I feel tempted to pour out my more negative thoughts and feelings here but although this is ‘my’ blog, it has developed a style and flavour which I am loath to transgress. Apart from the occasional digression into the strain of mother/daughter relationships I keep my madder moments to myself. I write them down by hand in a book. These scribblings are the streams of distress that emerge too predictably when I am disappointed by those people in my life who I feel should treat me better. ‘Everyone who was supposed to love me has betrayed me!’ I wail into the page, detailing each transgression in an uncustomary illegible scrawl. ‘I am incapable of forming relationships!’, ‘Why can’t I keep my big mouth shut?’, ‘I might as well just give up now!!!!’ – it all pours out, the words more of a hurt and confused adolescent, than a mature and sensible woman.
I am both, and more – all my Rayyas are within me – those from the past and those from the future, tumbling around in each present moment, jostling for position and expression. I am managing all these selves on a continuous basis with more or less success. Sometimes I can go for days in the illusion that I have finally settled into a pleasant, settled, calm and wise woman only to find I am triggered into the raging, footstamping teenager I never actually was but wanted to be or the cold, withdrawn bitter old woman I could become. It used to disturb me a lot and occasionally still catches me by surprise but on the whole, I am more skilled at self-management than I used to be.
The problem is that I am beginning to find myself unbearably dull at times. I used to be creative and spontaneous and a little bit crazy and although it got me into all sorts of trouble, it was a lot more interesting. But then I wonder if I did that to avoid thinking about how lonely I really felt. I have no answers to these questions but it’s no coincidence that they are arising more insistently now that I’m single.
11 Comments
March 31, 2008 at 11:56 pm
Blog personas
Time for a bit of neurotic self-absorption. I’ve avoided such things on this blog, and I feel better for it, overall. Though it does make the blog somewhat boring. Snowqueen (via a favourite of mine, A White Bear) writes on the difference between the …
April 1, 2008 at 7:17 pm
Writing things down here certainly sets things in stone: people remember. But if you feel strongly about something, why not? Me, I get more than enough praise and encouragement from those around me, even when I feel I have messed up (Thank you M, and my daughter), even at work. (I skive, they think the results are good)
Dull is good as long as you are happy. Try something eccentric like geocaching, that’ll get the raised eyebrows.
Besides, I doubt whether you’ll be single forever.
Single parents rock!
April 2, 2008 at 10:24 am
I hear that snowqueen, I feel similar.
April 2, 2008 at 6:28 pm
Hello You.
Sorry its been so long. I’ve been trying to learn how to be a good dad and that has been taking much of my free time. Loving every minute of it.
You know how some people (myself included) think of the journey being the point and not the destination. I could have written your last paragraph. It has been a long time since I read it but Camus’ “The Stranger” puts me into a mood to ponder these questions.
April 2, 2008 at 10:55 pm
No Rebecca! You’re much too young and beautiful to be feeling like that! Get out there and enjoy yourself – I’m only like this because I thought I was ugly and unlovable when I was your age and now I realise how stupid that was and I wasted all that talent!!!! (although at least I still have fabulous boobs as Pauli was kind enough to endorse!)
Hi jeffrey! long time no see – I have dropped in to see how you’re getting on and guessed you were rather busy. I’m sure Jackson Yi and Lilly Penny are doing well with you and Morgen as parents.
April 3, 2008 at 8:56 am
Snowqueen,
It strikes me that there are competing tensions at work here
It’s all very well musing “I used to be creative and spontaneous and a little bit crazy (etc)”, whilst also being “An unusual person in search of the ordinary”, but there’s likely to be some accommodation or compromise required to satisfy both of these desires.
As you know I’ve been a little pre-occupied of late, and indeed on essentially similar matters (except that I can’t look back on a past when I was creative and spontaneous!), but I haven’t come up with any answers to this dilemma. No doubt we’ll swap thoughts next time we meet.
In the meantime, on the matter of singledom and loneliness, I’d draw your attention to the inescapable beauty of Marlow’s words, as he struggles to relate the story of his journey up river: “We live, as we dream – alone…”
April 3, 2008 at 9:28 am
Hehe Snowqueen, I’m glad that you’re happy with your, uh, assets
And thanks, I’ll keep that in mind.
April 4, 2008 at 9:16 pm
… and every journey, beginning or ending, starts or finishes with one small step … first move or come to rest. Stay a while and dream, walk on … everything you ever knew is always with you and how exciting will be the joy of what’s to come … that you don’t yet know … P
April 5, 2008 at 11:37 am
I think we all have a raging, footstamping teenager inside, who emerges from time to time.
This is a really interesting post – I might have to take it up on my blog. (The blog that I’m supposed to have stopped writing *sigh*)
April 6, 2008 at 11:53 pm
MrP – you strike at the heart of the dilemma (as you so frequently do). How to be unusual *and* ordinary, how to be alone *and* a partner? I haven’t yet worked out where to make the compromise – to risk being dull or too accommodating or too unusual or too exacting.
Hello Paul – welcome to my blog! I think the greatest aspect of the solution focus (and most underrated) is the ‘next small step’. It is the kernel of hope, the possibility of change – and while we can’t always make the world, ourselves or others the way we want, we can still form and take the next small step towards positive change.
hi anx! I’m so glad you haven’t stopped writing your blog. I’d be interested on your take on this topic.
April 7, 2008 at 10:50 am
Your focus solution approach is immediate kin to creative and spontaneous. It’s the same magnifying glass that lights fires with the sun.