100 Posts

I'm not sure what to think of the fact that I've posted 100 times here now.

Certainly I don't post with the regularity of most bloggers, nor with the consistency of topic. My daily life is like most people's, I guess; full of drudgery and boredom and anxiety and frustration. A great deal of my time is spent trying to anticipate what disaster is going to hit next and calculate how best to counter it. I go to work in the early AM, struggle through the petty backbiting and nitpicking and general crudity and foolishness of a group of controlling, insecure co workers, then tired and worn, I drive home to the sight of my lonely, appreciate cats. From there it's usually "which thing am I out of most?", i.e. gas, cash, cat food, detergent, checks, cell phone power, fruit or food in general. I try to walk, catch the news, check email, clean what's the most gross within range of me, maybe take an hour nap or so.

I try to spend some quality time with the cats. They are pretty much my only family now, at least physically close family, and they deserve it. I worry about house issues; moisture, cleanliness, appearance, the yard, things constantly breaking down. The lawn mower was on the fritz, the car had a flat tire, the furnace needed to be checked, the sink had a leak, the ceiling fixture in the bathroom kept overloading. The list goes on. I have to balance my checkbook, make sure the bills are paid, the dishes are washed, the clothes are clean, the yard is mowed, the carpets vacuumed. I have all the same responsibilities as everyone else, I guess. I just wish there were a day when I could eliminate their pressure from my mind, when I could drift away into my imagination like I used to and be creative and reflect more.

I'm hardly as busy as most. I have no spouse or kids to be responsible for. I'm a long ways from rich, but my bills are paid with no problems and I have no debts to pay off, besides my car. My job does have overtime, but its rarely so frequent that it becomes limiting in any real way. And the extra money is actually often welcome.

I wish that I felt the blog entries I make were affecting someone else somehow, but I understand that with such sporadic posting, I'm not likely to get many readers. I sometimes run off copies of entries that I thought worked fairly well and show them to trusted friends. But mainly they just sit here on the internet, waiting to be opened and experienced. I guess in that they are a bit like myself.

Ultimately, the simple act of posting makes it worthwhile. When I started this blog about three years ago, I had no idea of how long I'd keep up with it or how it would work out. I did assume that people would comment on it more, but I can't really complain about that, at least not with a straight face, since I am notoriously bad at reading other people's blogs as well. Like me, perhaps most other people really MEAN to, but just never seem to get around to it.

The blog is for me. It's not for others. It would be wonderful if I got more input, certainly. I'd like to know if what I'm writing resonates with anyone, if my sentence structure needs any work, if my ideas flow naturally from one to the next. But in the end, the simple act of logging these thoughts down, of creating a repository of ideas and perceptions is really an end to itself. I don't assume I'm ever going to acquire any notoriety from these posts, or become rich. I may never write for a living, though that thought is a bit depressing. But I can write WHILE I'm living. The saying goes that "life is all about the journey". Maybe this blog is now my journey. Maybe when I'm gone people can look back at it and gain some kind of insight into what I was all about, what I hoped for and what I feared, what I cared about and what made me angry or sad.

And on a less morbid note, maybe while I'm still here, the blog will allow me to express myself in a way I don't normally, thereby (hopefully) allowing me to understand myself in a way I wouldn't be able to without it. Sure half the time I'm writing about a movie or a comic or some ridiculous pop culture occurrence, but those are all parts of me too. They're what I think about, and extrapolate ideas from. They are parts of what makes me "me".

I still wish I posted more regularly. Part of my problem is my apparent inability to construct short posts; I tend to gravitate more toward epic ones. And part of it is just pure ennui; I struggle to find subjects that interest me and might interest others. The former is easy to find; the latter, not so much.

A lot of things have happened since I started this blog. My mom passed away, around two and half years ago. I became executor of her estate shortly afterward, and within a year I bought a home and moved away. Within six months, my older brother died. I had to help my niece and nephew sell what had become his house. I have a different job at work. I struggle every day to find meaning and purpose and the will and inclination to go on; my whole world has drastically changed, my equilibrium has been more or less destroyed.

On one of the rare comments to this blog, someone mentioned that blogging is good for OCD. That might be true. Certainly its a far better use of my energies that a lot of habits might be. I try to be true to myself and my writing roots. I try to never lose touch with that part of me that is a writer, and resist the oh so powerful urge to just let life wash over me and mark the days until I can see my family again. The blog represents moving forward, at least in those posts that don't revolve around nostalgia.

One hundred posts. I wonder what the next one hundred will bring?