Not All Who Wander Are Lost

Hi. It's me.

Yeah, I know. I haven't been around much lately.

I could go for the usual excuses. Tuesday I discovered I probably have Lyme Disease, which would go a long way to explaining everything from those damn tremors to the exhaustion and crankiness to the lightheadedness I start to feel about halfway through every class. Wednesday I was out late with Dad. Thursday was parent's night at school, and by the time I drove off I was so tired, I don't even remember driving home. Friday I fell asleep on the couch at 4, and never really hit consciousness again.

But something else is happening here. Over the past few months I've gone quite naturally from blogging daily to blogging perhaps three times a week, and even then, it feels like I'm doing it just to keep the record straight.

It struck me today that perhaps I don't need a blog so much anymore. Back when we started this ride, I was living in a dorm, my private life only available behind closed doors. Maybe I needed a separate life then, in ways I no longer do.

I'll keep coming back for a while, I think. But as we close in on five years, I'm beginning to wonder if perhaps my newfound abilities out there -- in the yard, in my family, in taking control of my body after all this time -- have taken me to a place where I can get from the real self what I once needed a virtual self to accomplish.

It took me a while to get used to it, I guess. But now that I can change the world, I don't seem to need to constantly create and recreate my own virtual world anymore.

It's a little bit sad. And I'll miss the screen. But there's something wonderful about realizing that I still had more growing up to do, but only retroactively, now that I seem to have grown it.

There's something wholly empowering about finally finding myself ready to take on my real world existence as both graspable and entirely my own.

Maybe, sometime soon, it's going to be time to move on into myself fully. And if that means the blogging urge is through -- that the virtual self has served its purpose after all -- well, it's been a hell of a ride.

Comments:

No. period. blogging is like the matrix- you leave and an agent will kill you. i dont know how they'd explain to everybody that an agent killed you

# posted by

DylanMAGICIAN : 9:16 AM, September 17, 2006

Whoo boy! If you quit blogging, I will be able to give up my addiction to your blog site! But then again, I would miss your musings. I've never figured out why I need to check your site every day. As an NMH parent, I was curious about your insights into NMH life; the microcosm of school from a teacher's perspective was instructive, and I also gained a better understanding of how the school worked. But I continued following your blog after you left NMH. A small part is my fascination at your willingness to expose yourself to the outside world... something that I find a bit self-destructive/endangering in a teacher... but mostly, I just plain find it interesting to watch you grow up. That sounds a bit patronizing, but it isn't. You have grown from childless self-absorbed new teacher to husband and father and teacher with a strong sense of responsibility towards those around you. These are normal stages for a healthy adult. And best of all, you allow me to observe these changes through your own quirky prose style. What fun! I hope you continue blogging, but don't do it unless you feel that it fills a personal need. And finally, as an older adult, I have some annoying personal suggestions: put aside money for retirement, no matter how little, so that you get in the habit and because it will grow enormously over time; take care of your body because soon it won't be as forgiving as it is now; make sure to nurture your marriage as strongly as you nurture your children.

Well, that's that. Don't sweat the decision. Just let yourself blog as you need to and it will continue or not continue.

And thanks.

# posted by

Anonymous : 11:10 AM, September 17, 2006

I think it's an encouraging lesson that we all still have growing up to do, no matter what we come to think of ourselves, and no matter what we're capable of today that we couldn't do before.

I'm not worried, though; you'll always be on my aggregator, whether you find the time to post twice a day, or whether we only hear from you when Willow catches a particularly shiny butterfly.

So go off into the woods, build something new, grow real, and see just how much you can do with this new world you're building out there on the other side of Mass. We'll still be here to read about it, when you have the time. :)

# posted by

Anonymous : 12:40 AM, September 19, 2006