Happy February! I'm increasingly aware of the movement of the seasons across both hemispheres, and the multitude of festive moments marked by people in different cultural contexts. New years and harvests abound, like firecrackers going off for months. Last week, we stumbled on a Vietnamese bakery in the outer suburbs. The place wasn't officially open, but they invited us in anyway. We talked a bit to the family and walked away with a small tower of moon cakes.
Soon after Elf's birth, a dear friend moved to our city. She's been kicking around Europe for the past several years. We moved a few things around so she could stay here for a few weeks while she found permanent digs. A long time ago, in another country, she and I lived together (around when Ocean and I first got together) and it's been quite nostalgic hanging about the house again. She moves on to her new accommodation next Thursday. Fern's grown very fond of her, so we'll have to schedule regular catch-ups.
I think I've finally accepted that we're going to be living in this city for the foreseeable future. It's taken me years, really. Every time I think of growing connections here, putting down roots, I've had pangs of wishing I could just go back to where I already had the solid beginnings of the life I wanted. Like a garden that I'd already dug up, built planter beds and bedded down a few fruit trees in... It would be so much easier to go back there, where I'd made a great start of it! But the votes are in, and we're staying here for a while. (eg -
We've been house hunting!)
About a week ago, I took some time to reflect on friendships I do have in this country, and made some commitments to myself as to how I will both appreciate my new, local community as well as treasure the networks I have elsewhere. The behaviour won't be much different to how I was acting before, but it feels like a different state of mind now. As if I've stopped trying to sail directly into the wind and have instead settled into a more comfortable tack.
Ok, I'm running on borrowed time now. Elf will wake up any moment, I think. A final word about this blog. I've been deciding how to continue with it. Basically, Lobe is a very private person and isn't comfortable with his life being on a public forum. He doesn't trust the light-weight anonymity of pseudonyms, and he doesn't like that I keep this blog. We had a discussion about it some years ago (when he first found out I blogged on here) and he said he just wanted me to know how he felt about it (i.e. uncomfortable) and that he did not like the idea of any of his personal life being posted on a public forum. He acknowledged that this site (and my blog here) was a space and community I enjoyed, and I agreed to be as considerate as possible of his feelings when I decided what and how to post. He doesn't read my blog (and wouldn't want to) so he's not monitoring me or anything like that. However I've felt quite cautious about continuing to blog on here, and have felt like I need to be cagey sometimes when I'd rather just share what's going on.
These feelings have become more frequent since Lobe and I live together now, as many of the topics I want to discuss will involve him, even if only in an incidental way. I've considered using password-protected / 'friends only' options to continue this blog on other sites (eg LJ or tumblr) but I don't really want to leave this forum. The best alternative I've thought of is to create an invite-only social group for the sole purpose of blogging more freely about my life, and invite users I am comfortable with to follow me on there. It seems a round-about way though, and a bit self centred? (A social group where the common interest is my life? Haha) But could serve the purpose.
If others were interested, too, I'd be open to sharing a social group with other bloggers who wanted to blog less anonymously on here (non-anon?)
Hmm... Just thoughts so far. I'll keep sidling along here for now. Would appreciate any suggestions from My Loyal Readers (pffft
)
PS, re "pffft
" above, I spent way too long to try to express "I'm not as self-absorbed as that sounds but I do actually appreciate the people who read this blog" in an emoticon / emoticon combined with a sound effect following "My Loyal Readers". How did I do? Ah, rats, I just realised the classic pokey-out-tongue might have worked fine
Cos it's also a kind of tongue-in-cheek look, right? Damn, I clearly can't internet-face right now. Gonna quit digging this hole...