I know it's been a couple of years now since dad died, and I had a lot of time before to emotionally prepare, and time since to mourn, but since then I just no longer feel funny. I can't write with the silly abandon that I used to. I have misplaced that voice. It's not all about losing Dad, but other factors as well, not the least of which is the emotional background oppression of waiting to lose Dad has been replaced with the emotional background panic of eventually losing mom, which will devastate me. I am, at heart, a mamma's boy. And my mother has been so much to so, so many. And most of all to me.
After Dad died, I decided I would take a year off. "Off of what?" I was often asked. Off of the roller coaster which can be the social life of a San Franciscan. I remember reading Walden in ninth grade, and I took a particular passage to heart. I remember also my beloved grandmother telling me when I was very young that given the choice to sit out or dance, always dance. As a shy person, I held to that as wisdom that required work. Around eleven years old I was terrified to learn to water ski, but thought if I didn't want to be afraid for the rest of my life (and as a little closet case I had enough to be afraid of), I would have to take chances. I coined my own motto that summer: To live somewhere between "nothing ventured, nothing gained" and "nothing ventured, nothing maimed." Calculated adventure.
And so when I read Thoreau, as much as I did not want to live in a cabin by the woods, I found the inspiration and the courage to—as much as I emotionally could—live deliberately. I promised myself that I would "not, when I came to die, discover that I had not lived."
Or as Mrs. Madrigal commented to the newly arrived Mary Ann Singleton, I couldn't wait to bite into the lotus flower. But she was quoting Tennyson.
Those who met me after I made the leap to San Francisco might be surprised to hear that I consider myself shy. Being outgoing is an effort, and a skill which I have adeptly adapted if I do say so myself. But I was not always comfortable in a room full of people I don't know. And I wasn't always the first to raise their hand to volunteer for whatever chance may offer. In college, I hid. Not only in the closet, but in general. I joined a fraternity my sophomore year. I became social chair my junior (senior?) year. To prepare for rush activities, I actually went to Bookstar, a bookstore in the old Belle Meade Theater, and bought a copy of the book How to Start a Conversation and Make Friends. Admittedly, I may have overshot.
Seventeen years in San Francisco, 4,740 blog posts, and more than a quarter of a million hits later, I think I can safely say that while I am no athlete at the game of life, I have not sat on the sidelines. I'm junior varsity at least.
But my point is this: I needed to take some time off. There's only so much lotus I can eat. I took a year "off" by not going out so much. Not accepting every invitation. Not going home to Nashville every three months, and not traveling much of anywhere (but wow Belize was awesome). I love my little San Francisco studio apartment and took more time to nest and read and watch lots of videos and cook and have some quality downtime with myself. I started staying home. A lot. Well for me a lot. After the first year off and my talking about not wanting to go back on the social coaster, James noted that my level of "staying home" is everyone else's version of "going out."
I just haven't been as engaged as much as I used to be, and therefore less fodder for the Blog of Adventure.
Losing Dad also coincided with my getting a new job, which affected my writing and blogging in a multiple of ways: First, I left the office where I worked side-by-side with a superbly clever and funny person and we would feed off each other's humor, reveling in escalating banter, making for a funny emotional place from which to blog and plenty of inspired content to relate. Without that energy and silly-sidekick vibe, there was so much less to be witty about. Secondly, I love my new job. I liked the work of my old job but the office politics were beyond oppressive and well-ensconced in corrupt. I worked hard and played hard. And as one of the only two people who did the lion's share of work and would routinely stay hours late, I needed to blog (lightly) during the workday to keep sane and productive, and felt no irresponsibility in taking brief blogging breaks during business hours, as so many of my personal hours were consumed as business hours. In my new job, I have significantly more responsibilities. And authority. And a very different level of what is considered "professional." Everyone still loves the energy I bring to the practice, and the humor and perspective, but I am in a different place now—professionally and geographically. You may have noticed that I stopped blogging during business hours. I respect my job a lot more, and am much more respected by my work too. I have more respect for my work than to blog all the time, or present myself in the blog as reckless or irresponsible. I do not remotely think of myself as irresponsible but rather think of myself as irrepressible. Unfortunately, the repressed are unable to see that distinction. Regardless, the changes in my life around the time of Dad's death resulted in less inclination to blog, less to blog about, and a new incentive not to.
I have always lived my life out loud, and never feared much about the fact that potential employers can read the blog. Frankly, even though I know it is now almost standard practice, I think it shows a lack of character for recruiters or hiring managers to judge people by what's on the Internet, or in this blog. It's hypocritical at best. "Oh no! Look! This girl went to bars and danced with her friends in her 20s! She is certainly irresponsible and we should not hire her." I would have to assume that the one judging never drinks, dances, and has no friends. And in all honestly, that is not someone with whom I would like to work. My ideal work environment is full of people who think the blog is funny and would be flattered to make it to its pages. But, sadly, we do not live in such an honest world.
Blogger blogs rarely used to appear in Google results, and even less did the content, and even less than that the names embedded in the file names of images. Now, it seems, Google searches for people who were only mentioned once in a file name bring my blog to the top of the search results. For my dear friends changing careers, job-hunting, or professionals such as clinicians, I can understand how they would rather that time we won the pants-off-dance-off not show up on the first page of search results. I also used to enjoy chronicling my dating life, such as it was. I have never really dated before. I have always been alone but I have never been lonely. I've had maybe three relationships, and only four or five guys I ever really fell completely for—which obviously did not go well as I would be with one of them now. But over the past year I have been consciously open to dating and relationships. And asking out men of interest. And going on dates with men who ask me out. And kissing lots of frogs with no expectations they turn into princes. And kissed a fair share of princes and felt like a frog myself. But now, of course, suitors and objects of affection can read the blog too, so this is not the best place to write out my feelings and thoughts and hopes and fears, nor tales of debauchery nor embarrassment nor my ridicule of the ridiculous.
I was lamenting to The Jamez my somewhat dead desire to write, and how the blog has become rather perfunctory. He had noticed. What he really said was, "Yeah, the blog isn't fun anymore since you cut its balls off."
Castrated indeed.
There was also the argument made that the reason I don't write about the crazy shit that happens to me anymore is because I have become so accustomed to the extraordinary life in San Francisco that the crazy stuff no longer strikes me as anything beyond normal.
So for all of these reasons: lack of inspiration, lack of funny energy, inurement to the crazy, reduced content, and a need to redact, I've decided to let the blog go. At least for now. I'm going to leave this post up for a week or two as a notification, then I am going to save the blog to a hard drive and lock it off the web, or put the blog behind a password entry. Maybe I'll find my voice again, or a different one, and resume another time. Maybe under an unpublished pseudonym.
But for now, I'm going to sign off from I'm Just Sayin'. I've said my piece.
Bon mots will still abound. You can follow me on Twitter. Subscribe to me on Facebook. And see me on Instagram (I'm going to start doing this more). And the photos will still be uploaded and archived on Flickr.
Friends can ask for the password once I lock it down.
My piece. My out.
