I’ve been trying to decide all week if and what I might blog about. You know, professional bloggers plan and write their blogs in advance. And they have a theme. And they write about things that matter to their readers.
I guess I’m not quite a professional.
I write about me, my life. I do try to enlighten, to come to a meaningful conclusion or, at the very least, I attempt to entertain, but in the end, it’s all about me. My blog, is anyway.
As soon as I walked in the door tonight, I made a decision that I wasn’t going to blog, mainly because, as usual, I have nothing but crap to talk about. I also decided that I wasn’t going to answer my phone unless it happened to be a family member. That was interesting to me, because it meant that I was still willing to connect – with someone. I have a very strong desire these days to disconnect. With everything, everyone. Maybe I’ll explain that. Maybe not.
It was interesting, also, because chances are that even if my phone does ring, I won’t recognize the number. That’s because – for the second time in less than two months – I am dealing with a new phone and a lost contact list. There is SO MUCH to that story, I don’t even know where to begin. So I won’t, for now.
I could write the epilogue to my fantasy-vacation-should-have-been-a-permanent-move-to-New-Mexico story, or I could write about the vacation itself. Either of those subjects would require me to walk a tightrope between eternal optimism and deadly despair.
I could write about unsolved mysteries: flat tires, sugar in my gas tank, a vanishing cell phone, missing clothing, broken picture frames, all serving to make me doubt my sanity. I could write about weighty issues that I believed – for a minute – had finally left my universe after exhausting me for years: dying animals and relinquished animals; plugged-up plumbing; cockroaches that should be hibernating by now, leaving me in blissful ignorance; cats leaving and cats moving back into my bed; financial flexibility (as opposed to financial freedom, though that was a fantasy I allowed myself for a minute)…it was there, I saw it, for a minute. Then a $65.00 vet bill. A $250.00 computer bill. A $450 vacation. A $125.00 car repair bill. A $100.00 sewer-repair bill. Two new cell phones: $50.00+ x 2, plus unpaid time off from work and unpaid time missed from work (two different things, both unpaid nonetheless, plus gas and mileage for two 90-mile round trips just to acquire the new cell phones.) ALL within a couple of months. Savings you say? Hah!
I could write about trust. Broken trust. (That story may never be told. Well, okay, take me out for drinks and maybe I’ll spill.)
I could write about the encroaching winter. Another encroaching winter. I could write about the verbal offer on my house I received just two days ago. The verbal offer that would leave me starting my new life completely broke. (Or, perhaps broken? Or perhaps free? What a question that is!) Or the counter offer I made, that would give me a rope to hang on to as I start my new chapter.
I could write about the fear I felt when my realtor phoned me tonight. I had already begun my re-purge, my new packing/moving plan, knowing full well that I might be setting myself up for disappointment. I missed her call, and then sat staring at the phone for a full 15 minutes before I worked up the courage to listen to her voicemail message.
I could write about the nausea, the fear, the anticipation. The so-strong desire to procrastinate, put it off till tomorrow (the packing, the purging, listening to the message), when I would – what? – be more emotionally prepared? For whatever scenario.
Counter offer declined. Where’s my wine?
I could write about all of that.
But then I turned on the news. Terror attacks in Paris, hundreds of people dead, just because they decided to have a night out.
I could write about that.