Exposed

So this is me--or was me when I was maybe 8, maybe 9. In 1969 or 1970 I think. In my homemade sports coat. With a full head of medium brown hair with natural highlights. Blue-green eyes, pale skin, and an angular face. I was effin' adorable if I do say so. Those were the days.

Like I've said before, it's been one heckuva ride since late 2010 or so. I have survived, maybe even thrived at times. I have also cried and sometimes wished I could curl up and die. Yep, I essentially became a country song: "Dreams of the Everyday Housewife," "Take This Job and Shove It," "Your Cheatin' Heart." "Sleeping Single in a Double Bed." "Crazy." But thank goodness not "Red Solo Cup."

I don't know if I'm ready to tell all just yet, although it does need to come out one way or another, in therapy, with friends, or here. But today I hope to start saying more, sharing more, showing more, and maybe even allowing myself to feel more. Hopefully I'll do the latter in a way that's constructive to me, not in the way it often happens, making me more timid, shy, and reserved than I truly am or want to be.

And hopefully it won't be too boring for you, dear reader.

Assuming there are dear readers out there. I see page views. I look at the stats and search terms used. I know you're out there. A lot of you are into Ivan Watson, Laurent Debesse, Gregory Fitoussi, and even Esta TerBlanche. And a lot of you are, interestingly, in Russia.

Which leads me to fear that my posts are the punchlines on Late Night with Boris Badanov or The Tonight Show with Lyubova Lenina. But the comments are so rare and so few, albeit positive. I have only a few followers that I know of. I keep talking, and I keep wondering if anyone is reading, thinking, laughing, understanding, or feeling anything at all.

That's how I started out in this venue at least, talking. I've kept a journal off and on for years, but not long after I moved to Pennsylvania, I decided to move it online, during the mid-2000s blog craze. I have years with of posts online, in this blog and another. Nevertheless, over the last few years, it's been more the case that I talk and write little and mean even less--and the meaning of that meaning is that I'm mean with my meaning, meaning I'm stingy with and shy about what I say and share. I give you mixtapes, podcasts, playlists, snarky humor, rarely known celebrities, and nature photos, but not much else. But then you don't give me much either, dear reader. And I kinda wish you would.

Times have changed. Reading has moved on from long form to short form and then on to nano form. From essay to blog to Facebook post to 140-character tweet to no words at all via Pinterest and Tumblr.

And yet I keep talking and writing. It's what I know how to do. While I don't know who is reading and understanding, I have to keep doing it, for my own sake, to state who I am and share what I can in the hopes that it will make me more understandable and feel better understood.

Who knows? Maybe reading and writing in long form will become retro chic one day? Like vinyl. Like "mid-century" furniture. Like Steampunk but without the ridiculousness.

But maybe to get more--readers, understanding from others, understanding myself--I have to give more. There's a thought, an obvious one, but one that's been a long time coming. Over the last decade--corresponding to my time in Pennsylvania, wouldn't you know--I've just felt that the more I've given, the less I've received. It's either been unwanted, ignored, or thrown back in my face with a stinging critique, a could-try-harder shoulder shrug or a how-stupid-are-you glare. Whether that's really what has happened or I've just been ultra-sensitive--being an aging stranger in a strange land, as it were--I could not say. Regardless, the result has been that I've given less and received even more of less. Almost to the point in early 2013 where I gave next to nothing and again, received the most of less, the least.

But in May 2013, things changed for the better. I met a great guy, and we have fallen in love. A year-and-a-half later we're still together and thinking about spending more time, maybe even the time of our lives, together.

As I said, the point of this point, this post, is to share more. But not just with you, dear reader, but with my dear, my love, my guy, my beau, my Cairo. Today marks the day that I'm going to share in a big way--not just with you but with him, this blog and all my thoughts, interests, and obsessions, profound, petty, and persnickety. It's time, it's past time, to pass on this pastime. I hope he'll enjoy what he reads and learns, should he choose to read. I hope you will, too.

This shouldn't feel like such a big deal, sharing myself with the world. It would seem that I do it every day, not just here in these digital pages, but with friends, family, colleagues, and the boyfriend. Nevertheless, like I said, I've become stingy, careful, cautious, reserved, wary, or perhaps just afraid. Of what, of whom is hard to say, at least in one perfectly constructed paragraph. Thus, I'll try to take more time to explain myself than I've done "of late," since this blog began more than three years ago.

So here's a slow, careful tiptoe toward the cool end of the pool. Backstroke, float, crawl, over and under, dog paddle. Whatever, however. Let's dive in together.