June 13, 2013

• But I Don’t Want to Go!

   

  I learned to read very early (I was three), because I wanted to keep the stories read to me to myself. I bugged my father until he agreed to teach me. Then, I wanted to learn to write, because I wanted to put all of the stories that were in my head down on paper. Bugged my father again.

   

  I was never published, never submitted anything to any place, because I was too chicken. I did not think that anyone would read what I wrote and like it. (I never thought that anyone would like me, even when I knew I had a close circle of friends; I always wondered at how they could like me – I’m nobody special.)

   

  All of that changed in the spring and summer of 2008. 

   

  I didn’t have a lot of money. My mother, now living in the apartment next door, was suffering with Dementia. My husband, Ken and I were paying for everything. I left my job for a few months and then went back part-time, because I could not care for Mom and help pay the bills. I was deep in the Black Pit of Depression, feeling like I was failing as a daughter, and a wife. I could not have children; Project Baby (shots, probing, miserable months of our life) had ended in failure. 

   

  One evening, my husband sat at our old desk, in front of our computer, chuckling. I asked him what was so amusing.

   

  “Come here,” Ken said. “You should see this.”

   

  It was a blog called whatjeffkilled.com. It was all about a big orange cat named Jeff, and, well… all of the things he killed. We read together.

   

  “The Sam should have his own web page,” I said. Ken agreed.

   

  I did NOT want to go back to Blogger; I’d had a page there a couple of years before, where I just ranted about personal things (It didn’t matter how personal; virtually no one read it.). I’d taken it down and didn’t want to go back. Besides, I wanted a site where The Sam would be seen. Otherwise, what was the point?

   

  Back then, my home page was this thing called “All Faves”. It had links to all kinds of sites, categorized. I scrolled down to “blogs” and saw Blogger, BlogSpot etc. Boring! Then I saw this colorful little logo: Xanga. I clicked on it. I ended up reading a few posts, and enjoying myself. I especially liked that people commented; sometimes it was funny, and other times, I felt like I was eavesdropping on private conversations.

   

  I decided to make up an account. What the heck? It’s free. I picked the name, “Samspeeps” because it was supposed to be written by Ken and me, and that is who we are, Sam’s Peeps (Anyone who thinks they own a cat has that a**-backwards.).

   

  Ken contributed in the beginning, mostly ideas and photographs (His pictures always come out better than mine!), but I did the writing, telling the story about how we adopted our kitty, The Sam (or how he adopted us).

   

  Soon after I began this blog, things changed. My mother’s dementia worsened, and so did my depression. I had read in a book somewhere that, “Self-expression is the archenemy of depression,” and so, I started writing my little memory-stories.

   

  The first time I clicked that “save changes” (or was it, “submit”?) button, I was in tears, scared, scared, scared:

   

  This is crap! No one in his/her right mind is going to even read through the whole story, let alone like it. Just give it up. You are no writer.

   

  I clicked anyway. F it. Nobody here knows me. What does it matter?  

   

  I read a few entries from people on (I think it was) the front page, and some of the new people (Does anyone else remember a feature that let you greet new Xangans? I forget what it was called, but I liked it.). Then, I shut down my computer and went about doing other things.

   

  When I came back to Xanga that night, I had “friend invites”… and a couple of comments!

   

  I was afraid to look at the comments. My cursor hovered over the link for a few minutes. Finally, I thought, well, Geez Louise, just look already! 

   

  “OH MY GOD!” I shrieked, alone. “Someone likes what I wrote!”

   

  I kept going. I wrote about my parents, mostly – old stories and the latest going on with my mother in the apartment next door. More invites came. More people talked to me, not just about the writing, but what the writing was about. I read their posts, too, and got to know them.

   

  There were a few people that I began to feel very close to, especially after my mother’s hospitalization, and then her death. People I had never met before reached out to me, shared their own stories of grief, gave me cyber-hugs, and made me feel a little less alone in the world.

   

  Ken appreciated those people, and Xanga too; so much so, he gave me a great Christmas present that year: LIFETIME PREMIUM! I was thrilled!

   

  I wanted to give these folks a little more of me, and my story. I wrote about my mother’s Cousin Steve, Grandma, my brothers, my Auntie V, Uncle Kid, old loves, and of course, my Sam and Mikey (Those same people were there for me when Mikey, a/k/a “Ma Petite Fleur”, died in 2010, just a few months after we moved from Connecticut to Wisconsin.).

   

  My life has changed a bunch since 2008. There have been a few things that have kept me from posting as often as I used to, and man-oh-man, did I miss my Xangan friends!

   

  I’ve been trying to “come back” steadily for a few months now. Until recently, it’s been difficult. Now I have plenty of time and privacy (I am sick, on Family Leave, so I am always home, and we have our own place now.).

   

  However, I don’t have any money. My leave is unpaid, and Ken’s hours are such that we are having trouble paying the rent and keeping the electricity on. Until I am well and back at work, I cannot see how I will be able to maintain my Xanga account. Yes, I know it amounts to only four dollars per month, and it is worth even more than that to me. However, I have less than one dollar in my checking account, and no one knows when I will be feeling good enough to return to work.

   

  I’ve begun using my WordPress account (I originally opened it up a year ago, but never really used it until a week or two ago), samspeeps.wordpress.com, and I like it, but it just isn’t the same. It isn’t Xanga.

   

  I do not think that Xanga will be closing down, and that makes me very happy. I’m hopeful that the changes they implement will make this an even greater place. I hope I get to see it for myself!

   

  I will continue writing no matter what happens (with Xanga, with me), no matter where I go (WordPress, or just my notebook). But I don’t want to go!

  • 8:22 am
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