Caught in a landslide, no escape from reality.
Open your eyes, look up to the skies and see.
- the incomparable Queen
I am watching my blog stat's dwindle a long, slow decline these days. I see conversations on Twitter and I just can't join in. Farcebook is fast becoming a ball and chain. It all feels heavy, the weight of this new social-media responsibility to reply to this, comment on that.
I see you all and I love what you're all doing. But I feel somewhat like the Bubble Boy lately. Can't quite put my finger on it. But one thing I can say is, for once in my life, it's not depression driving the outside-looking-in feeling. Huzzah!
I see you all and I love what you're all doing. But I feel somewhat like the Bubble Boy lately. Can't quite put my finger on it. But one thing I can say is, for once in my life, it's not depression driving the outside-looking-in feeling. Huzzah!
There is a strong urge to purge at the moment. Many are doing it via getting their feelings out in blog form. And readers/followers of me will know I am nooooo stranger to that. What I am doing now, though, seems to be rather more tangible than the written word. But at the moment, my focus is not on writing. Right now, I am having to resist throwing out everything we own. I appear to be downsizing everything - what is the old adage, you have to let go of the old to let the new in?
Lately, I am feeling an apparently insatiable need to get physical. I am literally immersing myself in the physical world around me. Lightening my load as I do it. Engaging in this "real life", there is not much room for blog hopping and countless lost minutes on Twitter (which is my other... "real life"...).
In no particular order:
In no particular order:
• I'm gardening like it's going out of fashion. Wait. It IS going out of fashion in some suburbs, I'm sure of it. Thirty local indigenous plants have gone into our backyard in the past fortnight with much more to come - look out for a post soon entitled.... "My Native Flora Brings All The Birds To The Yard", subtitled: - and their nectar is better than yours. No seriously, I could teach you but I'd have to charge.
• Life has given us lemons. Lots and lots of lemons. They say when life gives you lemons, make lemonade. Looking at my tree and contemplating that... well, that'd amount to a buzztonne of lemonade. Seriously, I'm literally picking so many lemons off our tree that I could keep every fish and chip shop in Melbourne in the little wedges for the next 12 months.
• I'm exercising daily (something I keep falling out of the habit of but this time I have to stick to it and properly bed it in because I NEED to feel fit again, I miss it after six years of lethargy)
• I find myself feeling the need to quiet my mind and prepare for next year. Hear me out! This is a big transition the LGBB and I are going through at the moment - she is off to school and I am heading into the world of..... glorious free time. Five days a week. I have heard people laugh at me (yes, AT me) when I say I won't know what to do with myself, jokingly, and they say I'll be bored before the first term is up. Ahhh, don't think so. Someone hold me to that, won't you? Will one of my blog readers still be reading then, I wonder? Steve? Wanna hold that baton til about April next year? I think you're the only one left reading, soooo whaddaya say.... cheque's in the mail, by the way.... [lone cricket chirping]
All of this means that my focus is on those (and that) around me in my physical world. My work and my study takes me out enough as it is, without the cyber-unseen world to do it as well. I am grounding myself at the moment and it feels good. Reaching out and wading in the immediate things I can see and feel and manifest - like a garden or helping out a neighbour or fellow preschool family - is what is enriching me right now.
I have noticed for some time that this blogosphere (now spread so far that it affects and is effected by the Twitterverse and good old Farcebook) takes care of itself, whether you're here or not. Movements like RUOK day are great. But what about tomorrow? The in-your-face-ness about constantly having to be online to be remembered online is something I am still coming to terms with and working out how I truly feel about it. Everybody does it, it seems... but does that make it okay, healthy even, in the longer term? It seems the only way to do be read/remembered/discovered in the first place is to constantly stay in touch, although it's a heck of a lot of clawing your way to the outside of the growing pile of online users and, as much as I adore this community and my blog, it just gets very... what's the word? Tiring? Neglectful of the physical world around us?
Do YOU know what I mean? Do you even agree? I may possibly have managed to offend my last few readers (ok, I'm being drastic, it's not all that bad... 100-something hits a day but still.... that's way less than what it was a minute ago, but more than it was 3 minutes ago, such is the nature of the Internets). But surely I'm not the only one thinking it's all a bit much. Truth is, I feel inadequate daily for not having the gumption to consistently do the same level of pimping and online exposure as I see the majority of my "peers" doing. Just. Can't. Keep. Up. And getting to the point where I'm unsure if I even want to try.
I'm exhausted with pimping myself, basically! So I'm going to be primping my garden instead for the next while.
If you need me, that's where you'll find me. Now if you'll just excuse me while I let myself out and make a soothing cuppa, I've got some lightening to attend to.
Wherever you are and through whatever medium you're creating your own reality, don't forget to get out there amongst the mundane right in front of you. You might surprise yourself and enjoy it!
Love!
