Wednesday, January 7, 2015

Belonging

I've pretty much always been the worst when it comes to journaling.  I have many a notebook filled with good intentions and a dozen scribbled pages dissolving into many blank ones.  This goes all the way back to my pre-teen years.  I want so badly to be one of those women with beautifully scrawled pages, full of thoughts, feelings, prayers, desires.  Every so often, I even believe that this will be the year I'll do better and I'll try again (there's one on my nightstand as I type).  This blog has really been no different.  The manners-loving part of me feels like I need to apologize for this, probably on monogrammed stationery.  The rest of me is indifferent, as it would appear that this is just kind of who I am.

Despite that, I haven't taken this blog down.  I still come by and read what's going on with other people I've loved and followed over the years.  I keep up with my darling internet friends on other forms of social media. I loved the little community blogging created, and I miss it.  Mostly, I miss writing regularly.  Admittedly, most of what I wrote here was unimportant, even to me.  They were the little moments that make up a life, and while sweet, they were fluff.  Every once in a while though, I'd manage to string some words together that really said something resonant, and those are the moments I miss the most.  

I spend a lot of time alone.  A lot.  Honestly, I don't mind it.  I like my little routines and after I've listened to the voices of teens for 7.5 hours on a school day, silence is golden.  But, I have missed sitting down and filling my little corner of the internet with my brand of weirdness.  I have missed the fine art of rambling until things made sense.  I'm still struggling to find places where I fit in, whether in a church community or life in general (you try being the 30-something single girl at social gatherings sometime).  There are big, honking chunks of my life from 10 or so years ago that I still miss daily, especially people.  In some instances, I think I have romanticized the those days as far as their moments go, but I don't think I've done that with the people.  I'm a hard person to win over, and there were people from my former church (which feels almost like a former life, at this point) that I truly loved who are no longer people I see and that's so difficult to face. And it's harder because I just haven't found the kind of fit that I had at that time in my life again. 

At dinner the other night, a friend and I were bemoaning the unique situations we are in socially.  It's hard to be a woman without a family of my own when most people my age have at least started on one.  There just isn't a lot of common ground. When the church you were raised in and the church you spent most of your 20's in are no longer a part of your life (one literally no longer exists), it's hard to know where you belong. 

I'm thankful that I belonged here, even if that has waned through my inability to find the time or find the words.  I'm thankful for the people I "met" and the thoughts and silliness shared in equal measure.  And while I doubt I will ever blog with the frequency I once did, I hope I can at least stop by with a thought or two a little more often, because we need as many places we belong as a we can get.  Even if they are ones you create for yourself.


2 comments:

  1. I miss you here. I enjoy seeing you pop up in my twitter feed, but blogging is different. You still belong here, and I think even every now and then is still an okay way to blog. Happy new year to you!

    ReplyDelete
  2. Thank you, Joyce! I'm going to make an attempt to keep the blog up more often. I think I'm going to spend some time realigning some of my obligations this year, in hopes of freeing up a little more time. Happy new year to you, as well!

    ReplyDelete

Comments make my day! Leave me one here...