I’ve been thinking a lot today about this blog, its purpose, and its function. I’ll tell you exactly why I created it: it was to have a place where I could easily keep in touch with my family, none of whom live near enough to be involved in my life on a day to day basis. This way they can read at their leisure about the minutiae of my life without having long phone bills or expensive plane tickets. It’s not an exaggeration to say that in many ways we know more about each other now than we have in 15 or so years.
Blogs are interesting. They start to feel like your home…an extension of your living room if you will. And the best parts of living rooms are the comfort of being in your own surroundings, and the people who drop in to see how you’re doing. Sometimes it’s hard to remember that the people who are sitting on your couch talking to you are really only a small part of the guests in your home…the majority is actually standing around in the shadows, leaning against the hallway wall, hanging out on the kitchen island, or just listening at the open window. It’s not that I didn’t invite these people (after all, the door is open and there is a sign at the end of the driveway saying “conversation going on inside”), it’s just that I didn’t know they had come to listen. They never announced their presence, you see.
One day I wandered into my living room when I was feeling a little down. Discouraged. I get tired of being upbeat all the time and just wanted to have a glass of wine and flop down on the couch. Maybe feel my feelings for a bit, without having to flash a glittering smile and tell everyone I was fine and so would they be.
I started talking…monologuing really, not expecting much from the people on the couch. I thought it would be nice to tell the truth about what was on my heart. I wasn’t sure if I expected or even wanted my guests to reply, but I talked on, complaining a bit, until the load felt a bit lighter.
The people on the couch were mostly supportive. Some were surprised to hear what I was feeling – I think they thought the glittering smile was my natural, normal, expression…my real face. Some touched their glasses to mine and said “I hear that, sister, loud and clear.” One or two shook their heads and said “Now, now, don’t get all down in the dumps!”
I didn’t resolve anything that night. No flash of wisdom or sudden insight came, either from my own heart or from the couch-sitters. But it was nice, in a way, to just talk about it for once.
I had forgotten, though, about the silent listeners. Well, I knew they were there, but I expected that, if they had felt moved in any way by the topic under discussion, they would have come into the light – maybe waved a hand and said something, anything, about their reaction. Maybe, if they were too shy to talk in front of all the others, they would have come by later, when everyone had gone, to actually knock on my door and tell me what they thought I should hear.
What I didn’t expect was that those silent listeners – guests in my home by the implicit invitation of the open door and the sign at the curb – would drift away to talk to each other, and to people who hadn’t been present that night at all. They would discuss in shocked tones the conversation they had overheard, and shake their heads gravely and wonder “Has she been lying to us all this time?”
The next night I came back into the living room to tell a joke, or give out a recipe, or something…I can’t recall exactly what. Then, a few nights after that, I told a funny story about work. Soon I forgot about the conversation I had had that night, and for a few weeks I simply talked about my life and its aggravations, both tiny and enormous. The people on the couch had forgotten that conversation, as well, and were laughing at my jokes, trying out my recipes, and once in a while poking fun at me in a good natured way.
While all this was going on in my living room, the news of my conversation that night had spread like wildfire through the rest of my acquaintance. I didn’t get a knock on my door, or a letter in my mailbox, or a ring on my phone – I didn’t know anyone was still thinking about that night.
Today, though, I went to visit friends, to share my feelings to them in the hopes that together we could work out what was best to do about them. Those feelings hadn’t gone away, and I knew the only constructive approach was to bring my concerns forward so that they could be addressed in a positive way.
I was shocked when I discovered that my friend knew all about the conversation I had had with the guests on my couch in my living room that night. One or two of the listeners had come to her and said “Were you there? Were you listening that night? In case you missed it, this is what happened…”
My friend feels a lot of things today, about me and that smile I wear most days. She is wondering whether my life, my friendship with her, is actually a lie. She wonders whether the feelings I revealed that one night in my living room are the truth.
And now I find myself torn in two. Part of me feels this:
