Last evening I checked in on a blog. It is a new one for me – very well expressed and well written. It was a casual stopping by for me; the author had come to her blog that day with a not-so-casual topic. She wrote about the suicide of a close family member – one that happened years ago. Although for her, it was both years ago and it was yesterday. I’m 61 and I do know something about the word never now; I know something about remorse and regret. And anguish . . . I think I know how that feels.
I wanted to be able to write a wise comment, one that could soothe. But I wound up just saying that she was in my thoughts. Sort of a typewritten resting of my hand on hers, an acknowledgment of the vast and complex emotional territory she is in. It has been in my mind ever since.
You find a lot of things in blogs – humor and introductions to different lifestyles and great pictures of faraway parts of the country. And in some blogs you find life, honest and real. Maybe in that a writer and reader join in a realization they are not alone.
I’m always at a loss for words when I need them most and have too many when I ought to just keep silent. Unfortunately as a rule it is more the latter than the former.
I often wonder why we blog as we do. Is it an inability to express to those closest to us our feelings? Or is it the desire to express our lives and not necessarily have someone jump in and “fix it.” Sometimes it’s just knowing someone listens with a sympathetic ear. I actually met my best friend (who died, wow, almost 4 years ago) through an online forum and blogging. I well know how real these invisible lines that connect us are.