Uncomplicated
A fellow blogger commented about the uncomplicated nature of my life today, and I couldn't help smiling. My life appears uncomplicated, because that's how I write about it. I suppose compared to many, my life is uncomplicated though. I'm wondering what qualifies as complicated now though.
In the blog, I am me – that's my real name in the browser address bar, and in the title at the top of the page. Sure, I've experimented with pen names and pseudonyms in the past, but I always end up returning to 'me'. I'm not clever or skillful enough to write through somebody else's eyes – or at least that's what I like to tell myself while qualifying why I've still not knuckled down and started writing that novel.
There's a lot about real life that I don't share on the blog. Nothing about work. Nothing really about the kids lives any more – their lives became their own quite some time ago. I will admit to grimacing when I see other parents splash their children's lives all over social media. Some seem to live through their children, and some seem to use their children as a platform. It's all very strange.
So what does this place end up being? A journal. A simple, uncomplicated journal of the days of my life. I often worry that the little things don't add up to very much, but continue writing anyway, because what else am I going to do? Perhaps choosing to be 'just me' is partly driven by laziness. I don't have to craft deep posts – I just record. I suppose the blog is uncomplicated in that regard.
Seventeen years. This is the seventeenth year that I've been emptying my head into the keyboard. There were a couple of years before that, and I recently discovered a little of them on a ZIP disk attached to the iMac. One day I'll fish them from the abyss and wince at my long forgotten words.