Another turning point
The sun has set and it is fully dark. A bright, white moon hangs in the east, rising now above the ancient oaks standing solid and wise, draped in Spanish moss and melancholy secrets. It is quiet. Crickets pulse their violin songs and a candle flickers deep and warm on the patio table. It is peaceful and a quiet contentment moves in the soft breeze. It is dark, save for the candle, a slow fire in the firepit, and muted, low lights from surrounding homes.
I have made a good friend and I'm so blessed to have been invited here. I expected to laugh, to be silly, to have an adventure and to enjoy a good time. I did not expect to share so deeply and to find such depth of understanding and easy communication. We have laughed and we have had a good time, but it has been anything but silly. We've connected easily and with trust and confidence. The depth, intelligence and wisdom of our conversations has fed my soul and brought me to a settled place inside my spirit.
How often is it that you find that things are not always what they seem? We learn this lesson in life over and over again, and still, we define our parameters and deliver our expectations with childlike determination, only to find, once again, that the only thing we have control over in this life is ourselves. Everything else is God's business.
It is almost breathtaking how perfectly timed and perfectly matched and perfectly fitting this connection has been. I feel changed. And that is not what I was expecting. I feel blessed, guided and provided for. And neither was that what I was expecting. Our spirits must have called to one another because the answering resonance is one of such understanding and trust, so in tune and well-matched, it feels as though we created this friendship ahead of time. It was all in place by the time we moved laughing toward each other in wide open joy.
Thursday was a getting acquainted day. Friday we talked until time to leave for Ybor City, where we met Joe Egg, another MySpace friend. I have pictures of our fabulous evening together, which I've already sent to Mike but have not yet posted. Mike's excitement and gladness for me, as I've shared these days with him has been a blessing as well. I don't know when I have felt more at ease, more confident, more myself than I have in these past few days. The authenticity and freedom to be me is oxygen to my spirit.
Yesterday we spent at R's teen-aged son's track meet, in which he took a first place medal and is going to State. It was an exciting morning. We ate lunch at Cracker Barrel and came home and took a 4 hour nap. We were tired li'l girls. LOL. Then we got up and ate snacks and drank Tequila Rose until 6 this morning. Talking all the while of course.
We slept in this morning, got up and visited with her boys, ate pancakes with strawberries and whipped cream, then sat on the patio in our pajamas all day. Talking, dreaming, figuring and resolving. Connecting and blessing. A few tears, a little laughter, a lot of love.
And now, we watch the fire and enjoy the last moments of our visit. Sipping cokes and Makers Mark, we're waiting on the last of the breaded quail to deep fry...the very quail that R and her family shot on their last hunting trip. Her family is precious. She is a quiet and gracious hostess, full of selfless love, wisdom and inner strength. I see it reflected in the home she has made, in the affection she and her boys share, in the courtesy and care they extend to one another and to me.
My flight is at 7:00 in the morning. Blessings and peace on this home and all who are in it. Which, in this last, quiet, velveteen night, happens to include a very grateful and very quieted me.
5:51 PM - 10 Comments - 4 Kudos - Add Comment - Edit - Remove
I wrote this post on MySpace last summer. I don't have that MySpace account any longer, but I saved several of what I thought were my better posts, before I deleted the account.
It seems appropriate that I should run across it tonight, and I decided to post it here in LJ for a reason. Maybe you'll help me figure it out. I poked my head in here sometime last week, read a few journals, commented in one, and tried to think of something to say in my journal. I started out by saying that you guys are so cool to keep me on your friends' lists all this time even though you don't see me in here very often. I didn't get past that opening line, so I ended up with no journal post to say hi. I felt like I had touched base just from seeing your dear, familiar faces and reading your signature prose. Even after all of this time, it tugs at my emotions and feels like a little bit of home.
So I've been pondering that feeling and that connection all this week. Like most adults, I'm well aware of the perils of the internet and of blogging, journaling, posting and IM'ing with strangers. I also know that it is possible to kindle camaraderie and relationship with online friends.
And then I stumbled into MySpace. Funny place, MySpace and the like. It used to feel like a community, like home...now it feels foreign. Events and interactions that seemed innocuous or circumstantial at the time were, in the end, my own creations. I warped my own sense of reality and in doing so, crashed on several different levels, mentally and emotionally. I had to get out of the drama. We create our little universes and they swirl around our lives, orbiting uncharted stars and planets, then dissolve into a black hole or burn out like a shooting comet.
And such is what happened to my lovely friend and myself, a mere two weeks after my delightful visit to her Florida home. We had a misunderstanding and escalating conflict over a mutual online friend, and could not close the gap it created. Can anyone say "High School" real fast, five times in a row? I can't believe such a corny and immature thing happened to me at my age.
But the real problem, I discovered, was not the conflict itself, it was the arena in which the conflict took place. The misunderstanding and the ensuing hurt, bewilderment, anger and paranoia was large enough that it spilled over into the area of "relating", just like RL relationship conflicts do. The problem was that it became cumbersome to try to "explain" oneself, mindset, meaning, intent, emotion through the written word...over and over, through all the tangles and brambles. There was too much and it was enormously time-consuming and opened the door for further misunderstanding because of the LACK of emotion and intent that can be conveyed in writing, when dealing with a conflict that BEGAN in the emotions.
Lord have mercy.
And here's the thing that was a revelation to me. When we tried to resolve our differences over the phone, it became as stilted and awkward and self-conscious in RL, as it had been passionate, demanding, energized and exclamative in writing. It didn't translate to the world because we don't know one another well enough to be having the conversation we were trying to have. We had not yet earned the privilege of speaking to one another about such private and personal issues as we were trying to deal with, yet, online, we had given one another access to those areas. It felt like intimacy and friendship online, but in RL it felt like presumption and intrusion.
That creeping awareness came over me as we spoke heatedly on the phone, and an unedited, un-thought-out version of what I just wrote crept up the back of my neck and coughed over my scalp. I felt suddenly embarrassed, chagrined and exposed. What were we doing? I listened quietly to the rest of what she had to say. I apologized for the bad turn things had taken and told her I needed to get off the phone and think it all through. She agreed she needed to do the same. And that was the last interaction we had.
Just like that. No more *hugs* or *sqqqeeeeezes*. No more LOVE YA's or funny graphic comments or long messages about our day. Just like that, we weren't friends anymore. It was too cumbersome and unwieldy, what we had created in our little universe. It's like the difference between the gravity on the moon and the gravity on the earth. What came easily in long, loping strides on MySpace was heavy and uncomfortable in RL. And *phfffttttt!*, our friendship shot across MySpace heaven with a glittery tail of disappearing drama.
So this was months and months ago, and I haven't done any blogging or posting for about 6 months. I came to LJ and deleted most of my userpics, and stopped my paying account. I didn't think I'd be doing any journaling of any kind going forward. I can't decide if it's a healthy thing or not...for me.
Still, I wandered in here last week and felt an instant lift. A comfortable, easy feeling of.....sanity? No, that's not it. *poke* More like, familiarity and stability. I think. Here are all you great people I've read for going on 6 years now, and still you. Not that LJ doesn't have its drama, because I know it does, I've just never had any in here. Maybe it's because, as Jabber once put it, "LJ is the suburbia of blogging."
So I've been pondering that this week - this business of blogging and online community and relationships. And then, this evening, found this old MySpace post.
It sure felt real at the time. And now, I feel like I really do miss my friend. So where did it go? Remember when I said, maybe you could help me figure it out.......
.....just pondering.......
Thanks for reading. :)