I received an email from a reader (and fellow blogger) a couple of weeks ago that said that she was giving me a "wake up call" because she was "losing respect" for me and my "whining." While this may be surprising to my reading public, my first thought when I receive an email like that isn't screw you but does this person have a point?
However, the email continued, and her point wasn't that I should be grateful for what I have (which, incidentally, no matter how bad the whiny-girl posts get, I try to remain firmly planted in the I-know-orphans-and-homeless-dogs-have-it-worse and think I make that somewhat clear), but that her life was worse, and so I had no right complaining.
So no, she really didn't have a point.
A friend of mine, a bright and brilliant woman who has been through a load of crap and then some, once said to me pain is pain. Just because yours isn't as serious doesn't mean that you're not hurting. My thought is that we all get down (in a funk and not a funky way), it's just that we need to maintain perspective through the process. Someone, somewhere, always has it worse. I didn't bother playing the one-up grief porn game, but simply responded that if reading my blog caused her such angst that she should probably stop and I wished her well.
There's another side to this, which I haul out and expose to the elements every so often and would like to do so again: what you see here isn't the whole story. While I am as honest - sometimes unbecomingly so - as I can be, you only get a bite-sized moment of time. I can tell you that there is little difference betwixt my online and my real-life personalities, as my friend Bill espoused when he met me in New York for the first time and said hanging out with you is like being in a real-life-slack-article.
However, I withhold information because it doesn't add to the story. Or because it's not mine to share. Or because it would hurt someone in sharing it. This isn't a confessional. It's a window. While you get to peek through the curtains, you can't see what's going on in back.
And the back is really a mess right now. What's incredibly frustrating is that I can't do anything about it. I have to wait for other people to figure out how to clean it up. I'm going to forge ahead, not because I am special or strong or I-am-toothpaste-hear-me-roar but because we all have problems, life-altering and annoying and stupid and somewhat funny and heartbreaking and soul-crushing and just plain petty and we all muddle through, stealing those moments of happiness wherever we can get them.
At least that's what I'm doing. I hope you are, too.
