I trust you knew I'd get back . . . eventually
Well, it is certainly about time that I get back to this neglected journal of mine! I more or less went into a January of seclusion, I guess to brood over the loss of my partner just before the holidays . . . well, no, actually because the month just felt right for that sort of retreat. It does take time to absorb that kind of blow. We didn't actually live together, but in the same apartment complex and had a nice mellow thing going, for about a dozen years here. Not a marriage, and not the first of my life's relationships, but almost certainly the last of them. So that has to be grieved, too.
And then I had to work up some kind of memorial to her, to share with my friends . . . around and about, and as a general update of what's going on with me. I made it a Valentine Letter, and put the pressure on myself to get it out in time. Barely did.
So that pretty much accounts for the month and a half since my last journal entry here. I've also been using the time to try and get a better feel for how I relate to this journal, and to LJ in general. I tend to feel pretty good about this space to work in, and the folks I relate to here (about half of those on my friends list, I guess - mainly the ones I respond to, so you can know if I mean you:). But fitting this into my head, when it comes to the best use to make of it is still not entirely clear to me.
I'm a pen & paper person. I've journaled for the past 35 years of my life, in one form or another, but it has always been in writing, so this still doesn't come naturally (which may also account, in part, for lagging on it as I do). And the argument that this is also a form of communication complicates the picture even more. I've no problem with sharing at the journal level; that's what I was doing with my Valentine Letter, and have done for many years. Heck, I have a hundred people or more on my postal mailing list. They are folks that go back years in my life, stemming originally from a zine I once put out, in the long ago.
Right from the start of it, I interacted with my readers on a personal level, and a good many of them remained in correspondence with me when the periodical (or 'sporadical', as I used to refer to it) faded away. Sharing is what my life has been all about. But it grew from a connection that had a focal point: we had a common sense of values (or else they never would have connected with me), and in most instances we had met and known each other face to face. So there was never any feeling that they were just names or faces on a screen. See, that's what makes LJ so strange for me!
Still, I've felt the genuine friendship and personal concern from those I do interact with here, and that saves the whole picture. In fact, I talked about that very thing, in my Valentine Letter. In that light, I consider it a superb way of breaking through the generational barrier that anyone my age ordinarily has to confront. I think some of you know the extent to which I've moved uncertainly with that; and most have affirmed me without reservation. So I'll not deny feeling a certain advantage in the spacey kind of friendship connection I find here.
But beyond those elements of gaining my '21st century footing', there is also the plain question of how I put my time to best use. While I'm admittedly slower than I used to be, my life seems as active as it ever was. Right now I'm working on my fourth book, as well as an article scheduled for someone else's book, and have recently been contacted by someone about contributing to a documentary he's putting together. So all of that crowds my 'LJ act' and it remains to be seen, how often I really will keep at this effort. Be assured, however, that my heart is really in it, and the effort will be made.
Thanks for all your patience. I have a few extra copies of the Valentine letter - a 6-pager - and if anyone would like one, send me your postal address