Some updates- I have become one of those people who ponders things (and foolishly believes she has come upon some epiphany when really it turns out to be oxygen deprivation to the brain) while running. This is not to say that I also don't have the constant chant "please stop" running on an infinite loop in parallel with all that pondering.
I was thinking about why I have not been writing here. I thought before that maybe it was an overabundance of topics, so much to write about that I could not focus on any one thing. I thought maybe I was too impassioned and that was clouding my ability to write in some measured manner about anything that I felt to be worth the words. Then I thought maybe the blogosphere is just good and dead, and all that is left is strings of tweets and clever posts here and there. Then I thought maybe I just didn't like writing anymore.
Then I realized, as I was gasping for breath on my short run in the dark tonight, that it was something else altogether. First, I am not an authority about much of anything in the world. I suppose I could someday be an authority on my job, but not right now, and anyway, that would be a mind-numbing topic to discuss here in any detail. Second, the reason that I wrote, for a very long time, was to be understood, by others, and by myself. For a long time, I felt like every conversation I had fell short, like I didn't get to explain all that I had meant to say. Writing was a way to fill in those gaps at times.
But at some point I got older, and sure, life has gotten in the way. There is not as much time for navel-gazing these days. But I can honestly say that, were I this busy ten years ago, I still would have made time to have an existential crisis. It turns out something else happened. To paraphrase the TS Eliot poem that I so often have quoted over the years, I came to the place where I started, and knew it for the first time.
I am imperfect, as imperfect as they come. I still have plenty of moments of failure and failing to rise to an occasion. But I am aware these days, aware in a much more vivid way, of who I am, shortcomings and all. It's more than knowing, actually. I'm very comfortable with who I am. And I'm also more comfortable these days, more at peace with the notion that no one can wholly know anyone else. Not really. And that's okay. And a bunch of views into these thought-through words on a blog, they're not going to give you any deeper insight into the real person. That's what I'm starting to think. And I might be wrong, because I've certainly been wrong before.
You might not be around when I finally have something to say. Some of you left long ago, and some of you were never here. What I haven't reconciled in all of the above is that profound gratitude I feel when I do hear from someone that some hastily strewn words I've strung together have somehow resonated with them. Maybe the point is not really to be known or understood, but to recognize some commonality- and we are so fortunate, in many ways, to live in a time when that commonality can be sought out because of the many multitude of voices available to us.
