When I looked in her eyes, they were blue but nobody home

This is a little story about connection.

I'm an introvert, which sometimes surprises people. Sometimes people tell me I'm wrong. 

But really, all that means is that I need alone time to recharge. When I get over-peopled, I get really crabby and stop functioning.

It doesn't mean I'm shy (although I was for decades). 

It also isn't the reason I go off on a million tangents and inappropriate things sometimes fall out of my mouth. I think those can be attributed to ADHD or some other undiagnosed neurodivergence.  

Anyway, the point I'm making is that I love community, and long before I understood that it was my nature, I've worked to build community.

People are everything to me. I honestly feel there is nothing more important than the people I love who love me.

(Yes, OK, water, food, shelter, healthcare. But for my emotional and physical well-being, I need my people.) 

The reason I'm writing this is that I'm going to leave a really broad community I've been part of for what I realize is about 17 years. 

Time is weird.

I've been blogging longer, but I've been less and less consistent with the blog. Plus FB can be so passive. Writing takes creative thought and energy.

So I've been thinking about it for a while, and it's been hard, because I don't want to lose connection.

When I started blogging—and I'm not quitting—I was single, heartbroken, and in absolute crisis.

Emotional crisis like all of the lies my family kept secret for decades about my dad's suicide attempts, all the lies we told ourselves about being fine, those were absolutely choking me. The family dysfunction, which we didn't recognize as such, had molded me into someone who couldn't sustain a healthy romantic relationship.

And all I wanted was someone to love me. I hated myself. I was convinced that I was unlovable. That nobody would ever love me.

I started blogging, and the only people who knew about it were my closest friends and some family. Back then DC had this wonderful blogger community. We read and commented on each other's blogs.

We were online weirdos with varying degrees of concealed identities who shared our weirdness with the public and we liked each other for it.

Complete strangers started reading my blog. And the ones who liked my weirdness stuck with me.

And some of my invisible friends became in-person friends. Some I've never met, but we've still been friends since before Nick and I even met.

Such is the power of online community.

Late in 2006, when one of my besties moved in with her boyfriend, who it was very clear would become her husband, and another of my besties moved away for an amazing job, I was suddenly all alone.

I wasn't actually alone, because of course we were still friends, and I had other friends. But these were my see-all-the-time-call-in-crisis besties.

This was before I'd gotten very far in therapy. I was still crying all the time. I was still wondering why the boyfriend I'd broken up with didn't love me. I was hoping he'd change his mind and we'd get back together.

But I was frantically doing all this internet dating in case. Because I was terrified of being alone.

Basically, I was fucking insane. 

So at some point that fall, edge of winter, I realized that suicide was an option. For me, I mean.

Even though I was 11 when my dad first attempted suicide, and 18 for his second attempt, I'd never considered it as a personal option. Not through crying every single day and gaining 40 pounds my freshman year of college. Not through my worst breakups. 

But one day I realized: when my parents were gone, because I wouldn't do to them what my dad had done to us, I could leave.

And this idea was such a relief.

The option was there for some future time. I could put it on the shelf, and take it out when I needed it.

I didn't ever have to be completely alone and miserable.

That was incredibly calming. 

Then here's what happened. I progressed in therapy. And I got very into the blogging community.

This combination saved me.

I mean this literally.

The following spring, my dad attempted suicide and very nearly died. 

He wasn't breathing when EMS found him. We had to sign a paper at the ER allowing them to re-intubate him, to change from the emergency intubation to one that could be long-term in the hospital. We had to acknowledge that he might die during this procedure.

And then they told us, should he survive it, he might not ever wake up. If he did, he could be brain dead. We'd just have to wait and see if he woke up.

It took hours and hours to get him into the ICU.

One of my forever besties was with us, and we left at maybe 3:00 am? I can't remember. My mom wanted to stay. We drove to my parents' house to sleep.

I couldn't sleep.

So I got online, and I shared my biggest, worst secret on my blog. I said that it defined me, but was not about me.

I think about that now, and how sad that is. 

It really did define me. My life, and my mom's, were focused on keeping my dad alive. And he kept trying to leave.

I didn't know how people would react. Suicide was even more stigmatized then. 

I just knew I wanted to let it out. To scream it from the rooftop. To find some relief from holding it.

What I got was a tremendous amount of support.

One of my dearest friends became one of my dearest friends precisely because of that post.

I didn't know I needed all that support. But my gosh, I did.

And so, between working with my therapist and pouring my heart out on my blog, I started to heal.

I firmly believe I could not have done this without my online community.

I had and still have amazing in-person friends. But it was different.

And the reason all this is bubbling up is because for the longest time, I loved FB. I reconnected with so many long-lost high school friends, Peace Corps friends, and family friends in far-flung locations. 

Out of nowhere, this site eventually became integral to our lives.

In moments of anger I say I hate people, and India gives me a look and is all, "You love SO MANY people!" She's right.

I love so many people.

But I also, in the current regime, have very high anxiety. And I have never been any good at moderation. I am all or nothing.

It's part of my charm. It's extremely frustrating. I contain multitudes.

It would be one thing if, like a friend of mine, I could log on to post things on my great community Buy Nothing group. And then log off.

Or check in on a few friends, and then be done.

But no. This is not me. If I'm in at all, I'm all in. 

And right now, I'm posting and reading about one political horror after another. And I see very few posts from friends. I mostly see ads and random posts from all kinds of groups I'm not part of.

Recently one of my friends said, "You don't have to do everything. You can do little things that still matter. And removing yourself from apps takes money away from them. And money is all that matters to them."

I thought about this. I thought about the person who paid a lot of money to be at the inauguration. The  person who removed fact-checking from this online community. Who owns so many of the apps I use.

So I'm doing this one small thing, slowly extricating myself.

And in case you're reading this and thinking I'm suggesting you do the same, I'm not. And I'm not judging.

I don't judge people I like. 

I really don't. I have lived through some of the craziest shit. I've done plenty of crazy.

Who am I to judge?

Unless I'm married to you, in which case I want you to eat more vegetables and work out. 

(I do, however, judge the shit out of people I dislike. Let me not pretend I don't.)

But friends? Absolutely no judgment. Make your own choices. I'm here for you. I'm an enabler, not an enforcer.

If you're a bestie and you tell me you're in a Goodbye Earl situation, I will not ask why. I will tell you I have an SUV and I can be there with an old blanket.

This is who I am.

Am I scared of feeling isolated? Of course I am. I love finding commonalities. I love connection.

I guess I'll see how it goes.

And that's where I am with that.