Writing Into The Void

Part of what has shocked me into invisibility on social media is the shear volume of writing out there. 

In the olden days of AOL Hometown, when there were only, I guess, a couple hundred thousand of us sharing bits and bites of our lives and philosophies with a relatively finite audience (and so many of us were enchanted to have any audience at all…), I was a slightly-larger-than-microscopic fish in a very small pond. A carnival fish bowl, really. 

I felt seen. And heard. And appreciated.

It was quite the drug, that recognition among that tiny group of peers. And, oh yeah…I became addicted.

Two decades have passed, and social media has become an omniscient, omnipresent behemoth. Something that bears little resemblance to the adorable, precocious infant of 25 years ago. Something that is not altogether benevolent, or even beneficial. Sadly, it has matured into more of a thorny, vicious monster. Leave it to the human race to turn something possibly wonderful into an odious, evil mess within the span of a generation.

Be that as it may, peeping out amid the slime and the shit, there is a lot of good writing out there. Tons of it. So much that I have been intimidated into silence.

I read something really good, and I immediately think, “How could I ever have possibly believed that inexperienced, uneducated little me could actually write?”

I go to my laptop or my tablet, call up Blogger, and…give up. 

I wish I could be a great writer. Or even contribute something—anything—decent to the pool of beautiful prose that is out there.

But I can’t.

Or maybe I can…

From time to time, I dive back into my 20+ years of “Coming to Terms…” and peruse a couple of old posts.

I came upon this one a couple of days ago, from 2015. More precisely, the eve of my 60th birthday.

On Reaching the End of Another Decade

In those days, I was already years beyond the last crumbs of an appreciative audience. And yet…

I read that post, and I thought, “God damn. THAT is some decent writing.”

REALLY beautiful. 

As well as being wise words to live by, now…a year into my EIGHTH decade on the planet.

I CAN write. When will that be enough for me?

I’m Still Here…

I accidentally reactivated my Facebook account the other day. 

Reluctantly, I was drawn in to perusing the feed. All my old friends were still there. And, for an instant, I thought, “Maybe I should just…come back. Maybe I should rekindle the old relationships. Maybe then I wouldn’t feel so isolated and ignored on social media.”

I really did seriously think about it.

Then, somehow, I was able to call up my last post. My farewell post from when I left FB in 2019.

And I saw that it had gotten 2 responses.

Two.

It was then that I realized, for the second time, apparently, that there were no relationships to rekindle. 

So, a little sadly, I deactivated the account again.

Not much point in reopening a door that had been firmly closed on loneliness and…irrelevance, maybe? Just to gain access to another portal to loneliness and irrelevance. 

I get plenty of that on Instagram. 

And here, I suppose.

At least here I can whine about it and be pretty sure that no one will see. Or, even on the extreme off chance that someone DID read, they would never leave a comment.

Yeah…it’s been several months since I posted here. I don’t think I have ever let this much time lapse between posts. I realized that it’s just because I’m completely overwhelmed by the events of the day. One outrage after another. Not enough time to contemplate and compose a reaction to one before another comes roaring out. And another. And another.

Too, having been a voice crying in the wilderness during the G W Bush administration, I feel like I was out there trying to warn people…with warnings that were not heeded.  Even back then, when my voice wasn’t yet lost in the insane cacophony. Now that the absolute worst has befallen us—at least, you think it’s the worst, until the next heinous thing pukes out—I feel like, “What’s the use?” No one is listening…certainly no one cares what I have to say about what’s going on…if I even knew what the hell I have to say.

Well…anyway. 

Just so anybody who cares, knows.

I’m still here.

More Ageist BS

America’s precipitous slide into hell has all but silenced my ability to analyze, comment or even think about the issues. Too many.  Too much.

Yet, every once in awhile some random thing can still become enough of a burr under my saddle to incite me to throw down a line or two out of extreme frustration.  Here’s today’s offering:

Two years ago, I posted this: You Can’t Have It Both Ways 

It was a “ I’m so fed up with boomer-bashing” post, brought on by conflicting diatribes I had come across online, castigating boomers for either downsizing from their old, family-sized homes, or for NOT doing that. Seems either way we went, we were depriving aspiring millennial home-buyers of…whatever we had.  I concluded that perhaps what we were supposed to do was hand our stuff to our kids and grandkids and just…disappear. 

Well, now it appears that we’re not even supposed to do THAT:

Due to paywalls and other various road-blocks associated with the internet these days, I was unable to access the actual Business Insider article  associated with this headline.  But the click-bait header was enough to fling me headlong into the world of  “What the fuck?!?” 

Sigh…

Just when I think boomer-bashing has reached its zenith…

…it rises to a whole new level of crazy.

And insulting.

You whiney younger generations can fuck ALL THE WAY off.

This is It

I’ve become invisible on social media (I “upgraded”  my Instagram account and have apparently been obliterated by the algorithms…)

I posted this there, and am not happy that no one seems to see it…or maybe they just…

Well, whatever.

It’s important. So…

Here.

(Context: Trump attacked Iran today…)

Is Minnesota Our New Fort Sumter?

 

One Word

There is always talk about resolutions, self-improvements, soul-searching and analyzation swirling around the first days of a new year. I’ve lived through plenty of New Years—at least 65 that I can remember. And all the resolution-ing and starting afresh is more than I can, or want to, handle any more.  I came across this New Year post, and its stark simplicity greatly appealed to world-weary, cantankerous old septuagenarian (!) me.

I can do one word. 

Okay. So…what is the word?

How about…

“Re-connect”?

Backstory:

The last five years have been…taxing, personally as well as globally. In 2020, there was COVID, of course, which destroyed about eighteen months of “normal life.”  The husband finally retired in May of 2022.  And lest we get too excited about living the stress-free life of comfortable retirees…in April of 2023, he was diagnosed with prostate cancer. Just as we emerged from THAT nightmare, he fell and broke his foot in April of 2024. The last almost three years of our existence have been largely dictated by facilitating HIS needs…which not only meant schlepping to medical appointments and working on treatments, but also trying to keep him active and keep his spirits up.  

Fortunately,  we have managed to do all those things pretty successfully.  In 2025, as the disability of  the cancer treatments waned, and he regained as much mobility with his foot as he is ever likely to (he can walk without a cane, he can drive, he can putter around with home improvement stuff…) the brief has been to find HIM a community of men friends, and activities that he can enjoy. And the more things he has found to be involved in, the more I have been left to my own devices. 

And therein lies the problem. 

With all the focus on him for the last several years, I have completely forgotten how to be alone. And now that I AM by myself, more than I have been in a long while, I feel sullen and peevish and lonely, and I tend to blame everybody but myself. 

There was a looong period of time in my life, and in our marriage, that I was pretty much on my own.  We lived a hundred miles from my family, and my husband was married to his job. I’ve never been an overly social person…never had more than one or two friends at a time, and definitely never was part of a community or social circle. Faced with being on my own, I found things to do by myself.  I got involved in photography, haunted wildlife areas with my camera at the ready…even went on camping trips (and one aborted vacation) by myself.  I developed a unique spiritual life that has no name or congregation.  I started a blog and shared secrets with the ether, even after no one came to visit anymore. 

I thought I was doing those things to keep myself busy and engaged when I had no one in my life who wanted to share them.  But, you know what?  It turned out I really enjoyed those things.  And I miss them. In fact, I crave them.  And nothing I’ve invested time and effort into for the last five years has replaced my need to have and do those things…MY things…that I have just…lost. Or almost lost.

Thus…the word.  The one word I would like to guide me through this new year.

Re-connect.

To my things.

To my philosophies.

To my writing.

To the wealth I possessed when I didn’t realize how wealthy I was…

…which I intend to cinch around me like clothes of the finest gold, and luxuriate in for as long as I possibly can.