On reflection....

The comments on my Blip of March 28 assure me that while I have leapt into Blip with more enthusiasm than good sense, I am not alone. Many of us have difficulty finding our balance. We read less, we're online too much; we feel tense or anxious about keeping up with comments, and sometimes when work or family stress sets in, what began as an indulgence becomes an albatross.

Many set boundaries: half an hour in the morning and an hour at night, a couple of hours on the weekend; only twenty subs, only ten; taking a day off comments every week. Blip breaks. Some can be random and playful and don't need boundaries; others need them. I do.

I love spending time in nature, but pictures of flowers and animals, unless they are breath-taking, don't engage me. What interests me more is layers of paint on old gates, city puddles reflecting blossoms and telephone lines, the view through a window (or into one), laundry hanging over a balcony, a jacket hanging on a hook, a fenced field, evidence of our flawed and fragile human lives. So in order to cut back to fifty subs (fifty-one counting Molly), I dropped the journals that are primarily "nature" based (much though I love them). I will visit them again, but maybe not every day.

Thanks for the good sense of Grace, who emphasizes having fun. I have decided to comment ONLY if I am bursting to say something, or I really MISS communicating with someone, or I have a question. I will view journals often, subs and others, dispense stars and hearts gaily, but comment seldom. I'll keep Blipping, but not every day. I will only comment and look at journals in the evenings. That means I will come late to those of you in Europe and the UK. Sad. But I will regain my mornings for focused work, meditation, and walking--with a camera.

Thank you for reminding me that with real friends, you pick up where you left off, and you expect gaps. Real friends don't require daily maintenance; we're happy to see each other when we meet, but we don't plan to meet every day.

I suffer from hyper-responsibility, a flaw common in people who grew up in families with adults who were alcoholic, mentally ill, or drug-addicted. Sadly, we are legion. We think we are holding the world together at the seams. We think everything will collapse if we don't work very hard to hold it together, because that's how it was for us in our formative years. For us, play doesn't come naturally or easily. "Fun" eludes us. We have to remind ourselves to ease up. Our chief beauty is our resilience. We bounce back. We have endured and prevailed against the odds, and if we have done some work in therapy and are engaged in fixing ourselves, joy and gratitude fill us up. We laugh as well as anybody.

Thank you for your wonderful words, thoughts, confessions, and revelations. That Blip will stay with me for the rest of my time here, and I will go back and read your comments again and again when I need to be reminded to lighten up, set healthy boundaries, and enjoy life (and Blip) with more ease.