When I moved from my home of Larimer County, Colorado to Washington state’s Olympic Peninsula in 1999, I did so with an optimism built on the spine of my young family and a sense that I had an opportunity to reinvent myself.
What I didn’t realize at the time was that my young family’s spine was broken even then and that you cannot reinvent what was never completed in the first place.
Within a very short period of time I discovered myself alone in our sprawling home and our new, ridiculous lifestyle, and so I turned towards the internet for solace.
Removed from my friends and family, removed from the kind of environment that could readily produce what had already proven hard won, I set to work expressing myself in such a way as to attract attention and understanding; a sort of appreciative commiseration.
Much to my idiot surprise, I succeeded in not only gaining positive attention from virtual passerby but also a sort of reinvention, which was really just a blossoming of who I’d always been, now removed from the distraction of long work hours, close friends, and ready inebriants.
Some eight or more years later, when the broken spine of my chosen family finally separated enough to let the corpse spill its wretched contents across the muddy floor, I was already well on my way into another life based upon this new illusion of who “I” was but, after the funeral, introspection has led me to realize that so much of what I’ve come to see as integral and acceptable is nothing more than another desperate supposition built upon the concept of denying the zombie that has been my home life.
While I have manged to construct nearly whole friendships from the internet, the overall resulting effect is much like a good movie, enjoyable novel, or delightful painting: all well and good – bravo! – but now it is back to real life.
The lights flick on and… Hmm – have I been asleep?
I am alone, more comfortably so now than before but I’m still a bit shocked to find myself in such a condition at this age and after all I’ve worked for, hoped for, and believed. Ulk!
Thinking back over the pathetic, little film I’ve just watched, I realize that, despite its potential for instant gratification, what I want is not in the tiny, glowing box in front of me after all. That what I want remains ephemeral, enigmatic, and deep within.
Luckily, so am I – and so it begins again.
Or continues. Or ends.
Damned if I can tell.
cae 10-09-09
Hugs….I met my husband online, therefore it seems (internet friendships) more real to me….maybe? Dunno…
Certainly I didn’t mean to denigrate online relationships – neither others nor my own, oh no! – but the idea that swatting about on message boards as a viable means of satiating my muse, filling the void. If said method’s never been your chief outlet of expression and companionship (gads, how sick that sounds) then it’ll be harder to understand (and easier to shudder at) my long dawning epiphany and search for a new – old? – way.
No, I’ve been there. I still do a large part of my *socializing* online.
Here’s to epiphanies, though!
I love you Corey! Have since 1st grade!!