Anniversary

I started this blog a year ago. I did so in the midst of emotional turmoil, abject loneliness and extreme confusion.

I had been writing in a forum run by a pseudo internet celebrity. My writing was tentative at first. I had never exposed myself to criticism (and the attacks I had witnessed were swift, merciless and without restraint) and I was wary.

When my writing was well received, I was hopeful and flattered. When it came along with a sort of respect and admiration that I had never known before in my life, I was shocked and grateful. I've always been an extremely solitary and shy person and the attention I was getting was unprecedented. I blossomed because of it. I became less timid and more able to be myself without a pint of liquid courage beforehand. I started to believe I was really good at something for the first time in my life. I felt like a part of a group, and that was something I had never experienced, either. I had never really had friends at any point in my life because of my nomadic upbringing. This was all new and glorious to me.

When the internet "celebrity" chose to viciously attack me (for reasons that remain, to this day, unknown) and my character, I was exposed to the basest of human nature. People I considered friends, people I had spent time with, who knew me intimately, stood by mute. Some even joined in and ingratiated themselves to him at my expense. I was literally heartbroken and sick. The fact that the attacks were unprovoked and unwarranted made the whole ordeal even more agonizing. My parenting skills were mocked. My physical appearance was torn to shreds. No part of my life was sacred. I was called vile and disgusting names by people who had never even met me.

I was mostly confused because I've never been a confrontational person and although I have been known to poke fun at people, if I were to truly hurt or offend someone who didn't deserve it, I would be contrite and ashamed of myself. My mother raised me to be kind. I try to live up to her expectations because she's the sort of parent that I very much want to be. I naively assumed that others would be the same way. I was horrified that so many people took such great pleasure in my pain.

Now, kindness should not be mistaken for weakness. I will stand up for the helpless, the down-trodden and I will most assuredly demand my pound of flesh when I am wronged. I spent a great deal of my life accepting the way that people chose to treat me and consoling myself by believing that it would come back to bite them later in life. At some juncture, I decided to use my own fucking teeth and bite them myself. When I insisted that he confront me personally, he ignored me, called me more names and then simply blocked me from having any access to his forum. I was never given the opportunity to defend myself or confront the idiots who assumed they knew all about me based on a skewed version of me presented by people I stupidly trusted.

When I finally accepted that there was nothing more to be done and I sat back to lick my wounds, a marvelous thing happened. The "lurkers", the people who had been reading but who had never commented, came to the surface. I began to receive emails from people asking me to write somewhere else; I was missed. Granted, my inbox wasn't overflowing, but those handful of emails went a long way toward pushing me here.

But I was hesitant. This blog is very much a part of me. Although I sometimes embellish for comedic effect, you are all witness to the details of my life that I don't even share with family. I share with you all, virtual strangers to me, the happiness that has been so scarce in my life and is now in abundance, and if you read between the lines, you sometimes see the anguish that I still suffer on occasion. It was difficult to fathom sharing with the world the details of my life because when I write about things that mean something to me, I don't leave anything out. If this blog had been written 5 years ago, you would see a constant darkness and melancholy in every entry. I fight those demons and keep them at bay, and, surprisingly, most of them have died a quiet death in the last year. My incredible fiance, my beautiful, affectionate son and my relentlessly joyful daughter have healed me in ways I cannot adequately describe. Having my own family and lavishing my love on them, the ones that deserve it, instead of a bunch of traitorous, opportunistic fucksticks has made me whole.

Now, I tell you all that to tell you this: thank you. Although I'm the world's worst at acknowledging others, I want you all to know that your words, your comments and your occasional emails have kept me writing and doing what I love. I typically don't link people only because I don't want anyone else to feel pressured to link me and I want my blog to be linked by virtue of merit and not a popularity contest. But I read all of you. Not daily, sometimes only once every couple of weeks, but I do read you. I see you. I keep up with what you're doing and how your life is going and though I don't always comment, I hurt for you when you hurt. I'm glad that the alpha's on the other forum proved to be such a bunch of shit-heads (and there were those who weren't. But they were few and far between and they know who they areworstname) and that I've been fortunate enough to encounter such an amazing group of people that I've, oddly enough, developed quite an affection for.

Here's to 2006. May it be full of laughter, love and success for each and every one of you.

Now back to the funny shit. You're making me cry.