Skeleton Tales

With another 9 entries like this one I will have written and published 200 blog posts in 200 days. It’s remarkable to me that I have been guided to write so many. Some days the writing comes easy. Other days it is a struggle to find a subject of inspiration. I turn to pictures, quotes, music, books, and of course memories to seek out a day’s topic when I am stumped. Other times, I know immediately where I’ll go. I am drawn to a subject by a day’s events, my feelings, or in following my heart and letting it tell me what to write. Every once in awhile however, there is a subject that I long to write about but which I fear exploring. I can overcome that fear at times but yes, there have been discussions I leave untouched.

I once suggested to my husband that I am complicated. I have to admit, I was rather taken aback when he started laughing at me. He told me that no, rather I am “an open book”. I was a little bummed. I tried to defend my suggestion by telling him that one of my teachers in high school had said long ago, “Miss Anne, you are an enigma”. Okay, now despite the fact that I had said, “Thank you” to that teacher, only to run to the nearest dictionary to look up what the word meant, I was flattered upon learning that he found me mysterious and puzzling. I also suppose I found the idea of being complicated as being something sexy or sophisticated. So when Eric laughed at me, I thought, “Well, there goes my sex appeal”.

Whether or not I’m an open book, there are a few skeletons in my closet, a few stories that I’ve told only to my husband or my children. I admit, I AM pretty much an open book; that is how I naturally live my life; I probably say too much too often; but like many others, I do have a few secrets. They are kept hidden out of fear of hurting another; it’s not myself that I am afraid of hurting. I value honesty but I do not believe that anyone should bare their soul if in doing so, another person is negatively affected. The secrets I have are pieces of my past which, for better or worse, shaped me into the person I am today. Everyone has their share of hardships and yes, I had a few troubling experiences that I have long carried in my heart. But I learned a long time ago that no one gets through this life unscathed. Wanting to make sense of them, I believe that the hardships I went through gave me a perspective that has helped me be more compassionate in my relationships with other people. So, in examining those skeletons, I have learned to accept the room they take in my closet.

Sometimes I find myself thinking that I’ll incorporate them into my fiction writing in some way, but when I try to put the stories into text, I feel my fingers freeze. I can talk to Eric or even to my kids, but I can’t seem to “make it real” by recording certain stories on paper (or laptop). I do not know if I will ever write about the secrets I harbor. I laugh to myself thinking that someday when I am old and gray, I’ll gather a few people around and say, “Okay, I’ve always wanted to talk about a few things. Here I go!”

So maybe, if you stick around and continue reading my blog, in another 43 years (only 15,695 more blog posts), you’ll read my skeleton tales. In the meantime, I hope I can continue to secure your attention with my day-to-day inquiries, insights, and imaginings... with or without any sex appeal I may or may not possess.