He Loves Me Not

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.