dear gee

Dear Gee;

I have a blog. Did you know? Suspect?  Sometimes when you’ve been on my computer, I wonder if I’ve been lazy about logging out of WordPress, and if you have found my blog when looking for your (legitimate and public) own.  Did you know what you were looking at?  Why didn’t you say something?  Are you more comfortable letting me keep this from you?  Are you waiting for me to come forward on my own, disappointed when I don’t?  Or were you only oblivious?

I don’t know why I’ve kept it from you. I don’t keep much from you; I really don’t keep anything from you.  I can’t. The happenings of my life don’t really become themselves until I have shared them with you. I love you with all my heart; I am so amazingly happy and relieved and grateful to have met you in that back alley of Zihuatenejo all those years ago.

And yet, this? This I was afraid to share with you. This I was afraid to admit. I ask myself quite often, why…

You know me. You know that in my soul, I am a lot like Dee (or she, a lot like me). I learned, a long time ago, to rely on myself; to live my life alone and proudly; to be self-sufficient; to refuse to expose any Achilles heel.

And a blog? My blog? I’m afraid, mon amour, that it shows an awful lot of weakness. I’m afraid you will read it, and that you will be hurt, or angry, or (worst of all) feel some colour of pity for me. You know that what I hate most in myself is my vulnerabilities, and you know them all; your radar will easily identify every soft spot I have, via each word I commit to the interwebs.

You know too that I fear criticism, and that opening my words up to people who know me invites criticism, voiced or stifled, explicit or implied.  I write with too many commas, parentheses.  My vocabulary is limited, maybe my metaphors are forced, my ideas trite.  You’ve seen me fall apart under the weight of your well-meant commentary before…could I continue to write, risking that again?

This I know:  I hate keeping this little secret from you.  Our couple is too Good for secrets; we are too much One to hide things from each other.  I don’t want to wake up one day years or months from now and discover that this one tiny insignificant thing was really the thin edge of the wedge, forcing us apart.  We are too Much for that.

I know too that I miss writing.  I want to be able to tell you that I’m going to steal away for a few minutes to work on a post.  I’m not sure why I can’t be satisfied with writing in a diary, as I used to.  Another blogger explained that there is something about the pressure of being published:  we try a little harder, revise a little better, and (theoretically) write more regularly when we believe we have an audience.  You of all people understand that, I’m sure.  

I don’t know for sure that taking myself out of the closet will help me write more freely and often, but it seems like a logical first step. 

Sometimes you look at me when I’m blue, and you tell me gently that I need to take better care of myself, I need to do things for me.  You are so right, darling.