MY BLOG: THE BOYFRIEND SUBSTITUTE

“Go be that starving artist you’re afraid to be.  Open up that journal and get poetic finally.  You were not born here to work and pay taxes.  Take pictures.  Scare people.  Shake up the scene.  Be the change you want to see in the world,”  Jason Mraz (recent journal entry).

                  

Why do you guys blog?

It just hit me what I’ve actually been doing here. Why I’ve been saying things maybe I shouldn’t be saying.  And why I’ve lately been tempted to press all the delete buttons on wordpress.   

Loser admission: I am trying to find emotional intimacy by blogging.  I am trying to get naked by blogging.  I am trying to get into trouble by blogging.

It’s a boyfriend substitute.  Told you I was a serial relationship person.  

You know how you can have a really lousy day or see something so beautiful or think of what seems like a great idea at the time … and then immediately want to tell the special person in your life?  Sometimes in order to hear what his take is on it and other times just to have him listen? 

Well, that’s what blogging has become to me. 

But I don’t want it to become a substitute for real life.

So dear blog, I really am going to have to find better things to do in 2008 than hang out with you.   At the top of my list …

I’m going to write and not just blog.  Stories, magazine articles, long letters. 

I’m going to get another tattoo.  A bigger one this time.

I’m going to look for a group I can volunteer seriously with. And I mean besides the tarot reading class.   

I’m going to live as cheaply as possible.  Stop taking cabs.  Give up the fancy clothes, food, everything.  Remind myself: window shopping does not count as a hobby!

I’m going to stop as many of the interesting people I meet on the road as I can and ask them why they are the way they are. 

I’m going backpacking everywhere I possibly can.  After that, I’ll figure out where I want to live for a while.  

I’m going to hook up with fascinating guys and experience the earth-shaking, toe-curling, tears-of-joy-causing sex my friends only tell me about.   

So when I finally stop blogging (and I’m giving this a year),  it will mean I no longer have to tell a boyfriend substitute that I’m alive.  

Hopefully, I’ll be living too hard to remember to post any updates. And you guys’ll be living too hard to remember to check up on me!