~Friday, May 21, 2010

As a writer, I have failed you.

When I started a niche blog about one aspect of my life, I thought it was implied that that this is only one aspect of my life and therefore does not encapsulate my entire being.

I don't write about work, mainly for privacy reasons. But I don't write about the long hours I pull. I don't write about walking through the parking lot by myself in the dark and getting home after prime time TV has begun. I don't write about the fact when the rest of the economy was in a recession, I got a 7% raise for a job well done.

I don't write about my financial situation, mainly because I don't want to brag. But finances? I have that down. Zero credit card debt. Actually zero debt except for the small car I bought slightly used. My bills are paid in full well before the due date. My car will be paid off a year early. I don't write about my bonds and CDs and investment accounts. I don't write about the fact even though my father is very rich, every penny I have I earned by living a frugal lifestyle. I don't write about what an accomplishment this is for me.

I don't write about my charity work, mainly because it is boring and incites that glassed-eye look. I don't write about an endeavor I took on for the Special Olympics this year. I don't write about my weekly volunteer time spent for the local children's hospital. I don't write about the fact that the hospital set up a special event just to thank my group a couple of weeks ago.

I don't write about my friends very much, mainly because everyone has friends and everyone goes out to eat and attends parties and weekends away.

I don't write about my therapy, mainly because it stopped being about S a long time ago. It's been about me learning to trust myself, dealing with my mother's divorce (my step-father of 17 years didn't even bother saying goodbye before he left) and my feelings of my father leaving when I was very little. I don't write about my therapy work or the books I've read or the lessons I have learned.

I write about one aspect of my life because it is the only part of me where I don't have my act together. It is the only area where I misstep and am uncomfortable. It's the area where I need the most improvement.

So when you tell me to get a life, or to focus on living my life, I'm afraid you are taking my writings a little too literal. I'm afraid you think that all I do is doodle bugs and flowers and potential new last names in notebooks. I already have a life, and it's a freaking great one. I know who I am and what I offer and what I'm good at, just don't know these things in connection to someone else.

I started this blog when I was 24. I moved home to be closer to my boyfriend of one year. We spent our weekends looking at houses and engagement rings, so when my lease was up, I quit my job and moved 90 miles south. Because this is what you do at 24 when you are still starry-eyed and the world still only has good things to offer you. Only the new job I took didn't work out and my boyfriend dumped me after 3 weeks of being home. So I was stuck in my mother's house, sleeping in my twin canopy bed with a college degree and no job and no boyfriend. My friends were all 90 miles north. It was a hard, hard time for me and I reached out to the Internet.

I'm not that person anymore. Some of you have acknowledged that, which makes my heart swell. Some of you still treat me like that naïve 24-year-old little girl. Some of you are downright verbally abusive, which I still have a hard time fathoming why anyone would waste his/her time to harass anonymous strangers over the Internet. What a waste of time.

Like I said when I started this self-indulgent diatribe, maybe this is my fault for not clearly explaining that a relationship blog is about relationships only. I am a whole other person with a whole other life beyond that.

32 comments:

Anonymous said...

AMEN. love you. hugs. when am i coming to hotlanta? this blog is awesome. so are you. i just drank a diet mountain dew and had an adderall. today is fantabulous. XOXO, gossip girl.

Erin said...

Great post. I think that many of us, myself included, forget that a person is not their blog. Continue doing what you're doing. You are self-aware enough to learn from any experience you have, good or bad.

Dawn said...

You don't have to explain ANYTHING! You are a superstar!

DL White said...

I love you. That is all. Can't wait to chat with you in person and SOON!

Anonymous said...

I read your post and was frustrated/sad/angry for you. How dare anyone read your words and judge you based on your honesty and willingness to "entertain" readers with your stories!
That said, I've been following you for a while now and loved reading the little bits about the rest of your life! Thank you for sharing that personal side of your life!
You obviously have a great life, with so much going for you! Follow your heart and if you like someone, who cares what anyone else thinks? I don't believe in "grace periods" or the need to "find yourself" after a break-up if you already know who you are to begin with. Chin up and enjoy YOUR life!

SuvvyGirl said...

May those who love us love us,
and those who do not love us,
may God turn their hearts,
and if He cannot turn their hearts
may He turn their ankles
that we may know them by their limping.
~Irish Prayer

Eleni Zoe said...

THANK YOU.

You said pretty much what I've tried to explain on my blog at least once a year since I started writing. It's a relationship blog, people.

Anonymous said...

Now then Sarah, the only reason I entertain the idea of coming to the great ol Us of A, using up my one long-haul flight a year rule... is that maybe one day I'll meet you.

Cos, you're great innit.

big love Xx

Tex In The City said...

You RULE and mean people DROOL.

Breeza said...

Great post! Don't you wish you could block mean people? Ha!

Anonymous said...

I apologize if my comments seemed the least bit insensitive or demeaning; they weren't intended to. If anything, I want to be supportive, but not by just telling you that everything is hunky dory.

I've been reading your blog for some time now. I was horrified by what Scott did to you so, when you took up with Chris so quickly, I thought it a bad idea. And, now that Chris is out of the picture, you seem to have transferred your interest to 5k guy, which made me cringe again. I don't know you at all - I only know what I read in this blog. And, when that is all that I have to go by, I want to grab you and say, "You are so much better than these guys! You shouldn't have to worry about whether they like you, or if it's a date, or blah blah blah!"

If I knew you in person, I would instead take you out for drinks and say, "I'm sorry. That sucks. He's a douche. But if you want to get back with him, I'll support you. You do whatever you need to do and I'll support you." I will still tell you that you are awesome and deserve better, but in a more outwardly supportive manner that doesn't always translate well over an anonymous blog.

In short (too late), I just want good things for you. I think we all do. What may read *mean* may just be advice given a bit too harshly.

Bathwater said...

It is nice to hear about the other side of Sarah too, this is your place though you get to choose what you share and what you don't.

I don't share everything either. I try to focus on what I want to talk about and if anyone wants to join along that is great. Reading a blog doesn't give someone the right to know everything about you.

Sarah said...

For the record, the verbally abusive commenters were the anonymous trolls, forcing me to turn off anonymous commenting.

Emma said...

So much I didn't know about you! But it sounds like you have an absolutely wonderful life! And I see you growing even in the relationship department every day, Sarah. You're not completely lost in that department :)

practice said...

totally brave post!

Laura said...

Sarah - i have been reading your blog for a while now....not even sure at this point how I stumbled on to it but from the first read, it grabbed me! so, I had to immediately go back and read the previous postings.....

I just wanted you to know that as someone that doesn't know you at all other than what you post here, I find you to be a fascinating, intelligent and funny person. You have gone through so much and it has been amazing to read your blog and see how your perspective on life/relationships has grown and changed. kudos! i wish you nothing but the best!

J said...

You are amazing. Period. The end.

nuttycow said...

And you've just reconfirmed everything I already knew about you :)

v said...

Readers need to be reminded from time to time that anything written is only a slice of reality.

I'm not in quite as bad of shape as mine would imply. :-)

Amy said...

Uh...your fault for writing about the aspects of your life you want to write about? FUCK THAT! And them...you are better than that, and if they can't see it, BUH BYE.

(SOOO ANNOYED RIGHT NOW)

Anonymous said...

When I initially read this last week I giggled a bit and thought "oh Lord, who pissed in her cornflakes this morning?" And considered an offline check-in. Then I thought better of it. This IS your check-in. You are not ashamed of your successful life and achievements.

Loads of encouragement from the comments I came back to read today.

Your 29th year is shaping up quite nicely isn't it?

D said...

Amen sister! A blog is for dumping whatever you want to put out there! No need to explain anything else- Love is one part of life- silly people, they should know that :)

dont eat the token said...

Cool, I loved hearing about some of the other things in your life! Not because I need to know you have your shit together ;) but because I want to know more about *you*

You're a bad ass!
Thanks for sharing.

Miss Devylish said...

Damn girl. Why am I not getting advice from you? ;) If you need an asst.. seriously, I work well for $50K.. cheap cheap! xo

Blog Deleted said...

Bill Maher had a great line on Friday night about bloggers and tweeters and Facebookers. Ultimately it's a search for acknowledgment. Did publicly bragging about all those accomplishments make you feel validated? Your lack of wisdom and immaturity leaps off the page. But you're about right for a 29-year-old. When you're 50 you'll read this drivel and cringe. When you put your stuff out there in cyberspace you have to take the good with the bad. Your problem is that you can't stay in the "now". You're always pining. Pining about love, pining about the future. But everything look$ good on the $urface, right? So much self-indulgent navel gazing. Your issues are rooted in abandonment and your childhood. You can have all the $0 credit card debt and cd's and raises in that your big 'ole heart can hold but if you don't have a scrap of self-esteem, what's the bloody point. I feel sorry for you and your lonely search for love. You have to validate yourself FIRST. Then you will attract the right love. You attract what you emanate. So far you have proved this. Universal law.

Unknown said...

Hey Annie,

Why don't you take your credit card debt and bitter old person attitude and fuck off? No one is making you read this blog, and I think to take someone down the way your comment attempted to do is more immature than anything I've seen.

mypixieblog said...

I am so sorry to hear that ANYONE would give you a hard time or make you feel bad for spilling your heart on the internet. Though we haven't met, I have also been reading your blog for a while now and have easily identified with most of what you've written about. I hope you are able to find strength from the support of your fan base. You have a fan in me :) Keep on keepin' on.

http://mypixieblog.com

libelula said...

Well, well, well! Looks like Glen Beck and his brand of hate and punditry under the 'Annie' alias reached your blog!!!

Isn't it funny how easy it is for some freaks out there to see the flaws in others while ignoring their own?

IMO this Annie fruitcake must be suffering from some sort of malady/malfunction/malaise/mal-adjustment herself if preaching maliciously to a total stranger gives her some sense of misguided power based on wisdom that she obviously cannot dispense to anyone who'll listen in 'real life', assuming that she's got one of those, of course...

To hell with the Annies, Id-jits and pundits of the blogosphere doll! You just keep on writing about your love life or whatever melts your butter, and keep doing with the same gusto you always have because coincidentally, part of growing up lies in discovering who you are now, based on where you've been and comparing it to where you want to go!!!

Miss Devylish said...

Sorry - of course Annie made me want to write again - Um.. I'm a blogger and you know what? I delete the negative comments. Does that mean I only listen to people who support me? Nope - but I sure as hell don't feel I 'have to take the good w/ the bad' at all. Because you know what? You don't. When I had 2 stalker posters who wouldn't shut up, I moderated my comments and ignored them til they went away. I do want validation - to a degree.. My blog is where I write for me. If you don't like it, hey, free country.. don't fuckin read my drivel. I don't think Sarah's is drivel, but I do see her age come thru her writing. I think that's pretty much where she should be. If this is what she wants to figure out publicly, she has a right to do so. She doesn't, however, have to publish negative comments. I'm sure that's her being diplomatic.. but Sarah, just know you don't have to be. Life's too short to have trolls in your cheering section. xo

Blog Deleted said...

Lol...I love how all the bloggers defend the blogger. Listen, I know I don't have to read. It's entertaining. Then I remember this is a real person and not some made up novel. I meant every word I said and it is just my opinion. You don't have to read it. Love love love how it got everyone all riled tho. EXACTLY what is wrong with this type of thing. If I don't agree and ass-kiss poor little desperate Sarah, then I am troll. That's your only response to anything critical. If she can't handle the OPINIONS then it should be private where she will only get told that everything is puppies and rainbows and yes Christopher is a knight in shining armor! I am sure there are many people out there who would agree with every word I said. And FYI, I am YOUNGER than poor pitiful desperate Sarah! Get a life internet ladies!

Sarah said...

Annie, your language is borderline verbally abusive and therefore negates any of your infinite wisdom. Obviously this is not the forum for you.

Unknown said...

Annie-

So, hold on...you liked how we responded to you? Is that...well, YOU looking for validation?

You realize you can just have a blog for this sort of thing, right?

 

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