The other day my friend said that she’s always suprized I have time to keep up this weblog. I instantly felt defensive and protective. This reaction was completly self inflicted. I know she didn’t mean anything by it. I do feel a bit guilty sometimes about the choices I make on how to spend my time. I have so few windows of “friend time”. I feel guilty that I have neglected my friends so badly over the last couple years yet the blog grows and grows. I made some choices deciding to change careers and go back to school, and I live with those choices, but I don’t have to be happy about them all of the time.
Honesly, I’ve been frustrated with this city for so long, and how hard it seems to be to create friendships that stick. Where are the friends that will come over and play Scrabble on friday nights. Everyone is so tired and flakey, including me, and that is so sad. We make plans two weeks in advance and can’t keep them. We flake over and over again. We flake for dumb reasons like “I’m too tired, I have gas, I don’t want to repark my car.” I swear no one in this city is capable of keeping an appointment. I’m sometimes amazed anything gets done. Part of me has given up. I know this is a cop out. Maybe it’s just a sign of getting older and I’m just blaming SF for it. Once you settle down with a partner, you do become more lazy. I don’t get to see Tom as much as I want, so I cherish our quiet nights together.
I feel sometimes like this blog is the only thing holding me together. I’ve always been a journal keeper and when I started blogging online in 2001, I instantly took to it. I feel a connection to the world that I lost after return to freelancing. It is the one friend I can always rely on. Friends move away and get distracted with life but this blog always has time for me. I got really sad after the dot com bust, so many of my friends moved away. This blog became my way of creating my own community and fill the gaps.
I have many readers, many close friends who keep up with me through this blog. Maybe it’s a sad world that we rely so heavily on the internet for personal connections, I don’t know. I just know that I love my blog and without it I would feel so lonely. I’ve been getting more and more visitors as of late, many of them artists with similar interests. I’m making new connections and getting exposed to inspiring art. I shouldn’t feel so guilty about it. My blog is a wonderful world. I don’t need to justify it to myself, I need to just enjoy it and nurture it. And honestly, I’ve never played scrabble on a regular basis.