Happy 2 to Me
July 7th, 2007 by Sonja

The other day I unwittingly wrote a post about the significance of 07.07.07 to the world … or not. Then I was browsing through my blog (her)story and came to the rather startling discovery that whether or not this date is significant to God, life the universe or anything … it’s significant to me. It’s my blog anniversary. My second. So, happy 2 to me.

I’m in a different place this year, than I have been the last two years. Both in physical and emotional space. The last two years as I wrote here, I was back in steamy Virginia anticipating my trip north to Vermont. To sit on the porch and hear the waters of Lake Champlain lap up on the shore. Today, I’m on the porch listening as I write. It is a balm to my weary soul.

I do so love it up here. My mother and my favorite aunt have been here too. We’ve been out gallivanting together. We did lunch and shopping (a first for all three of us together). We worked out together, found a quilt store together, jaunted off down curvy, hilly dirt roads to find strawberries together … all with me driving (and my mother directing 😉 she knows the roads better after all). It’s been a grand adventure. And I’ve been soaking it up to remember down the years.

We’ve been retelling the old family stories from when I was a child and from their childhoods as well. Stories I’ve heard at least a million times, but now I’ve heard them a million and one. Funny, though, there are one or two I haven’t heard and this time I’ve told a few of my own from my childhood that LightMom hadn’t heard, or added my own perspective to a well known story that brought gales of laughter, or in one case a sense of relief. It made me think of this quote (which I first saw over at Mak’s place, but later read myself in Relevant magazine, by the grande damme herself, Anne Lamotte):

One of my deepest beliefs is that every single thing that happens to you is yours. You get to own it, and you don’t have to keep others’ awful secrets for them anymore. You don’t have to be such a good son or such a good daughter that you can redeem their lives…If people don’t want you to write about them, then they should behave a lot better. It’s amazing when someone tells the truth.

All of which brings me back to my blog anniversary. The italics in the above quote are mine. I added them because I wanted my readers to pay attention to those words. Which, in the end, is why any writer adds italics to a bit of writing.

This is also a good day, three days after the celebration of the anniversary of our national Declaration of Independence, for me to celebrate my own declaration of independence. In a very small way. So here it is …

This blog is mine. It’s all mine. I write what I think about. What I write is public. I never, no never, write with the intention to hurt or threaten any one. But, as you might recall from my post last night, the truth is only threatening to those who wish manipulate it for their own ends. If anyone who reads this blog doesn’t like what they read, they can not read it … they can move along to another blog or another website.
But … if people don’t want you to write about them, then they should behave a lot better. I’m just sayin’ … that’s all.


5 Responses  
  • lyn writes:
    July 7th, 20071:07 pmat

    I love your declaration of independence. Happy second anniversary! My friend gave birth to her first born in the early hours of this morning. A little girl, maybe born on the perfect date??

           
  • Julie Clawson writes:
    July 7th, 20078:34 pmat

    congrats. and I love your declaration.

           
  • Erin writes:
    July 7th, 20079:38 pmat

    Congratulations! Preach it sister!

           
  • Ken writes:
    July 7th, 200710:02 pmat

    Sonya, I hope you can find some healing. I do think that “truth” is a sticky word when applied to relationships. We each see through the glass darkly, even in retrospect. In the past couple years I have worked through some very significant pain in my relationship to my parents, so I really relate to the feelings of abandonement and disregard. I have also done things to hurt my family (my parents especially), that recently I have come to regret (after lots of therapy). One thing I have started to cling to in recent days is that “we all have feet of clay.” I am often guilty of hurting others due to my own inner pain, often I don’t realize the real source until much later. Forgiveness and understanding seem to be the only way forward from this suffering, but it has taken me many years to reach such a place.

    I truly hope and pray that you and your family find a loving community,

    Ken

    P.S. Give my best to John. Tell him we now have a box turtle in a terrarium, makes me think of him and his love of fish and reptiles!

           
  • Calacirian » Housekeeping writes:
    July 16th, 200712:52 pmat

    […] If I sound angry, that might be because … I am. I am angry because I was forced to leave a community and friends I loved more than any place and people I ever loved. I loved those people, all of them even the bully almost more than my family and I had to leave in order to preserve the community and my family. So, I am angry that leaving was somehow not enough. For some reason it is expected that I maintain utter silence, virtue and fidelity to that community which betrayed me. I won’t do that. I am not going to keep those secrets anymore … I won’t buy anyone’s salvation with my silence. In the words of Anne Lamott: “If people don’t want you to write about them, they ought to behave a lot better.” Make no mistake about it … this is a line in the sand and I intend it to be such. If you choose to cross it, you do so at your own risk. If members of my CLB continue to read my blog after this point, you will read things that will make you uncomfortable. You may or may not speculate as to my intent, but you may not engage in that speculation on this blog. Get your own blog for that and I won’t read it. You have no business delving into my affairs at that level. […]

           


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