Blogging the Banal.

I'm just back from "visiting" a friend in Blogland. She's a daily blogger, and that I admire, on its own. But she's much more than that. She's clever, thoughtful, philosophical, witty, stylish, wise. And she is getting on with living her not-so-easy, in fact it's probably more like her In-Your-Face-I-Won't-Give-Up, kind of difficult life, and sharing some of it right before our eyes.

BLW at dailyplateofcrazy, you've got guts. And I can't think of many places I can go in Blogland, to read the words of someone who's staring straight down the barrel, and writing it down, word for word.

No fluffing it up, to look pretty. Maybe paring it down, but that's not the same thing.

Zoe also takes me places to think, as well.

My blog is not serving the same function, for me or for anyone else. More like a note stuck to the fridge, to remind me of something. I touch on some of the darker issues that I face in daily life, but I only touch them lightly. I'm not blogging many of life's happy moments, and posting the beautiful pictures and sweet recollections of this life; mostly because I'm too busy doing the things to blog them. But there must be more to it than that.

I hate banal blogging. Of course, there's nothing so wonderful and awe-inspiring about my own words, so I'm not claiming a distinction for myself amongst bloggers. But there's something dull about reading about someone's actions - the stuff they make, buy, do, that leads to a kind of vapid emptiness (is that tautology?) in what many people write.

I spent my afternoon dealing with what is a pretty regular thing for me in my life, negotiating my way around living and parenting alongside a close friend with a mental illness. And I felt like venting, about the difficulty of communicating with someone who has ears but can't hear what you are telling them, above the noise in their mind. About what it's like to have nothing happen to any sort of plan, because you can't plan someone else's state of mind. And about what it's like to see other people pottering along with what I'm sure they think of as hard-hitting, life-confirming, self-defining blogging, and find myself not able to even react to what they are saying.

I find myself most often feeling thankful, for my life. I feel blessed. Even in the tough times. And that's partly because I know, through my experiences, how much tougher, really just how extremely difficult, some people's journey through life is. I've worked in the children's wards, and in palliative care, and intensive care. I read of and absorb the struggle of women and children around the world, in all sorts of settings, and I know, at every level of my being, that they are people just like me.

So BLW, in answer to your own search for meaning, my offering to you, is that Sh*t Happens. And love, care, spirit and determination, mercy and selflessness, make it bearable.