so i was was thinking about this tumblr blog i have resurrected.  it’s really a megalomaniac-istic diary, carefully edited, a place where i would never put the real, intimate, more… human… details of my life’s struggles, embarrassments, questions and  postulations to the great unknown.  at least not unless they were comical. with one follower, knowing that it is ‘out there’ automatically implies that it is being written for the public domain.  i guess that’s why it’s called a blog or a journal, and not a diary.

so here is my first attempt at being the ugly human.

i wonder if i would have blogged if blogging was around when i was younger.  in 11th grade, we had a psychologist come to our high school and during E block, every one of us had to draw a picture of ourselves.  we had no idea what the pictures were for, but found out a week later that they were being studied in order to get a quick psychological snapshot of each student.  i never drew my picture.  i had asked the really nice exchange student from greece, natalie, to draw mine for me because i thought i wasn’t good enough to draw it.  that alone spoke volumes.  and the school and psychologist never knew.

i spent the first half, actually the first two-thirds of my life trying to remain unseen by the public yet seen in my home.  i succeeded in the first, failed in the latter.  ultimately, i mastered the art of becoming invisible.  i didn’t really like it, but it was safe.

time and choices have changed me so that, although i sometimes go through periods of feeling invisible, i finally want to be seen.  in fact, now i have become needy for occasional attention with this blog as my almost desperate plea for visibility — for anyone who is remotely interested in tumbling upon my words and pictures and borrowed quotes and other preferences that begin to define me.

i want you to know me.  laugh with me. cry with me.  ponder with me. smile with me.  the painful introvert is now a borderline extrovert and i like it.

but at the end of the day regardless of whether someone has read this or not, i have made the now easy effort of being kind to a stranger; invited conversation with the lady at the pediatric dentist’s office; had lunch with a good friend; helped my neighbor get the generator into the back of his car; scratched my dog’s rump until i thought he’d pass out with joy; sang in the car with kelly and jennifer after picking them up from art camp; stubbed my toe on the driveway while barefoot getting the mail; i am happy.