Blogging Cliches…

This blog is coming up on a year of existence now. So I take some preserve pride in the fact that I’ve managed to keep the clichés down to a minimum. A great deal of writing involves using archetypes, universal themes, all that stuff I had to study in AP English.

Blogging, which unless you’ve got a social, political or economic motivation becomes a hybrid of a journal/diary and a place to talk about interesting stuff you’ve seen online. Yes, you could certainly cut things a lot finer than that, but being semi-anonymous, I won’t.

But I’ve found myself at a bit of an impasse. I’ve recent had the chance to look back on what I’ve used this blog for in this last year. Amidst the good, the bad and the geeky, I’m starting to wonder if this blog is running out of steam. Not that I don’t have plenty to say. That’s not likely. Yet, I was reminded of something recently.

You are responsible for what you put out there. In all things. Yeah, you can’t please everyone and you shouldn’t try. If you’re doing it right (writing that is), you should cause a reaction. Get people to wonder if you’re right, if you’re biased, if you’re stilling working it all out or if you’ve got an actual answer.

And there are things that I own here that I’d never shy away from and there are things I’d claim with no small degree of humility because it was both impulsive and important only for that time.

Ownership and responsibility are two things that I must have over what is here, but when it comes to brass tax, I can’t. Not in the way that I’ve set things up. The aliases for myself and others… amusing or not, they’ve become half-truths. Just like much of my ideas hear are the rough first drafts, the stories I’ve told are incomplete and unresolved. Even when I come to honest realizations, I see how they can ring hollow because I’ve become the unreliable narrator.

In fiction, masks and lies are often the noblest of tools. They free the audience, giving them permission to suspend disbelief to be entertained or challenged, hopefully both.

But this isn’t fiction. This is my life. Or at least a slice of it.

Perhaps it is better to be completely unfettered with no audience than have people listen to restrained and protected thought.

I don’t know.

Family

A week ago today, Fortunate Son’s mother passed away, the cancer that started in her breast and spread to her brain finally consuming her body.

Sunday night, in honest and poetic terms, he praised her life, her love and all that she had done for him, his wife and everyone she knew. He told stories about how she would drag race cars at the age of 19, pushing her mother’s GTO to the limits and often winning. He shared part of a goodbye letter she had written him.

Monday morning, surrounded by those who loved them both, we brought her body to its final resting place.

A number of the Misfit Toys were there over the course of the weekend. We distracted him when we could, let him cry when he needed to, supported both her and IT Goddess the best we could.

Several times the both thanked us for being there, for our love, for all the small and large things that we’d done  as individuals and collectively. As was said back to them each time, there was no need for thanks.

Those are the things you do for family.

Be well my brother. The days will get easier after a time.

My World is Big

Fortune.

No, I didn’t win an obscenely large lottery jackpot (although if you did and are in need a biographer, I do good work) but I’m talking about being really fortunate in your life. Everyone catches a break here and there. You avoid traffic, get dealt pocket aces, your exceptionally smooth and charming while flirting without realizing it. If by nothing than sheer odds, you get things your way some of the time.

Now when you talk about being really fortunate: constantly being surrounded by people who care, people who go out of their way to help, to teach, to support and, most importantly, to love… that’s a true jackpot.

Freewill is the double-edged sword of being a living breathing human. You get to choose whatever you want to do as long as you’re willing to accept (or be oblivious to) the consequences. And there’s nothing like it.

Trouble is, as great as it is when it comes to your decisions, it is really troublesome when it comes to other people. They have this pesky habit of not always doing what you want them to do. Now your intentions, be they noble or selfish, and whatever influence you hold in the situation can sway the outcome to great and lesser degrees, but you can’t make anyone do or feel anything. That’s not to say you can’t impact or influence someone’s life – part of them has to be ready for it. Beyond blunt force means of violence, money and deception, for someone to be moved by you part of them has to be open to the idea and risk that it presents and the change that it offers.

Face it, caring about someone is risk. Family, friend or self. Putting your love, trust and faith into someone is doing so in the face of the fact that through error, action or inaction, you can be hurt.

So why keep trying? Because the rewards are fantastic. Even if they aren’t forever, they make the pain and the fear seem distant.

My world keeps growing and my understanding of it and it’s people’s struggle to keep up.

Time to chase some risks.