Tuesday, November 8, 2011

On a non-magical roundabout

I hate it when blog posts are like a broken record and become repetative.

As a reader, I like new information and insights, fresh ideas, further reflection, and a bit of narrative development.  To hear what comes off as being the "same ol', same ol'" turns me off.  I'd rather just not read it and imagine something is developing rather than hear the same ol' crap is going on.

Therefore I find myself in a dilemma.

It is for this reason that I have not been posting regularly on my blog since I completed my dissertation.  Since this blog is billed as one that is documenting my journey in seeking to "lose half my weight," if that journey is on a bit of a hiatus at the moment, it stands to reason that what would get posted would be the same ol' crap I've already shared.

I've gained.  I'm awaiting my Ph.D defense.  I feel lost.  I'm not sure how to get my focus back.

Yadda.  Yadda.  Yadda.

Obviously, if someone else were saying this to me, I'd encourage them to shift their paradigm a bit, look at what else could be considered, written about, reflected upon, and explored in order to get one's mojo back.  If someone else were telling me that all they had to say was the same ol' crap, then I'd say they needed some new lenses with which to see the world.

But it's not someone else.

It's me.

And when I think of all those lenses out there I could be using, I just want to curl upon the couch with a cup of tea and the latest episode in my discovery of The Wire, and wait for the internal demands I'm placing upon myself to quieten.

Abstract Crossroads (2009)
DragonArtz Designs
It's obvious that I'm at a crossroads in my life right now.  But rather than it being a straight-forward 4-way, it feels more like a big, jumbled, confusing, scary mess.  That's why I'm having a difficult time communicating it here without sounding like I'm going in circles on a roundabout of the non-magical variety.

And since I tend to exhibit a *tiny* bit of road rage when I drive, I imagine my lost self as one of those annoying people who sit at an intersection trying to figure out which way they want to go, causing me (the part of me who just wants me to figure it out already) to miss the light and sit in traffic longer than I had planned.

Gentle, lost Jayme says:
Take your time, hon.  You're grieving the end of this all-consuming process you've been a part of for 4 years.  What you're feeling is natural.  What you need to do and how you should do it will come to you.  Whatever you need will eventually bubble up to the surface and you'll figure it out.  Don't rush it.
Impatient, road rage Jayme says:
C'mon!!  What is your problem??  You've turned that damn thing in almost 6 weeks ago!  Life goes on.  Get over it.  Hurry up! I've got places to be and expectations to meet!  *HONK HONK*
Fun, eh?

And then I read a post today from Jane Taggart on BlogHer about intimacy and the cost of blogging, asking if bloggers have an obligation to their readers to regularly post and keep everyone who follows you updated on what is happening.  She asks a really great question:
Do we, as bloggers, have any obligation to our Lovely Readers? What happens when life or writer's block or boredom gets in the way and we suddenly find ourselves unable to produce any kind of publishable content? Do we owe readers an explanation? Would we give a dear friend an explanation if we were getting ready to plunge into the depths of the no-contact abyss for months at a time? Is it the same thing? ...

... We think we're out here, blogging, for ourselves. But! The moment we advertise ourselves and gain a following...whether that following is 10, 100, or 100,000+...we owe something to our readers. Something tremendous. Something well beyond ourselves.

In my effort to be authentic, my readers have always had my guarantee that I will always write about where I am in my journey.  If, for now, my journey has been delayed at a rest stop along a deserted highway, do you still want to know about it? I wonder, my dear readers, what part of my story these days you want to hear about?

Eventually, I will get back into losing weight (sooner rather than later, hopefully), but in the meantime, I do not want to bore you with the same old posts, trying to will myself to do something I'm obviously not yet ready to do.  (Yet, I'll admit that to me they're boring but you may very well say they aren't....maybe it's just because I think about it so much more than I write about it).

Maybe if I have some ideas, I can try to meet them and somehow find my way back in the process.

One must always hope.