Sunday Best - Commisery Loves Company

 

Commiseration. Yes, sometimes commiseration can be the best solution.

I have been thinking about the blogs I frequent often, the ones I jump up to check on each day.

What keeps me returning there?

Why do I like them and look forward to their posting?

It’s what I find there: moods that match my own on some days. Other days it’s a place where “they get it.” Pretty often, I don’t want answers to my problems, I just want to be somewhere where it’s OK to be who I am. With no feelings of needing to impress, or pretend to be something I’m really not.

I’ve read that “water seeks its own level” and “ seeks the path of least resistance.” That is what a “blogfriend” does for me.

A blogging friend is easy, they get you, they know what you're like--without you having to be alike.

When we find ourselves needing to vent, talk it out, work it out, feeling short ended on this life gig sometimes (we’re only human, right?) it’s strangely and curiously uplifting to find someone muddling through, too.

There is something about the “safety” you feel at a favorite blog.

You can be comfortable in your reaction and your response, and in what you say in the little square comment box, because you know that there can be a difference in opinion, and you and your girl are still good.


Sometimes, we just want to be understood.

Sometimes, we don’t want a solution.

We just want to nod “yes, yes, yes” to what we read, and let that be all there is to it. And laughing along in recognition of it all lightens the load.

Instantly.

One minute, you can be crying as you look around at the Hoarder's episode your house is becoming...and then, you hit the right blog at the right time, where there's a post on how the blogger sprained her ankle tripping over a mountain of toy trucks...perfect. Just what the Dr. ordered. You're now laughing at the sisterhood of it all, and no longer feeling like the messiest mom in town.

If you're feeling as if you're the only mother around who tears up as you watch your oldest be able to do so many things for himself now, and why can other moms embrace the independence of these teen years so well...and you? You just can't seem to stop pouring his orange juice for him in the morning. You sit in front of the computer, all misty eyed over this fleeing of childhood, and then you find just the right post, where another blogger is able to put words to what you feel in your heart. 

You can’t really describe chemistry, or put a formula as to why you feel drawn to a specific blogger and their site. If we could, we would all write the book and begin blogs and sell them later for thousands.

You can’t really figure out how you find your “tribe,” your group of women that make up your daily life as much as your family and co workers, and physical friends do.

You begin blogging one day, and then little by little, and one by one, you meet people that bring joy to your life, people who make you smile excitedly when you see it’s them on comments, or in an email, or a tweet, or a sweet: “a direct message to you from…” on twitter. People online who make your heart skip a little when you see it's them.

I think we all just want to belong to a part of something larger than what we have only physically around us. We want to be accepted, and part of a larger collective of who we are, what is reflected back to us, of us.  Sharing what is dear to us, tethers and binds us to others. We no longer feel alone, and misunderstood, isolated-- a stranger in a strange land.

There are times in our lives, when--yes, we truly want a fix, a solution, resources, help, ideas…but there are, more often than not, times when we only want to hear, “me, too!”

Times when we want to know that someone misses our presence in their life that day.

We want to know that we matter, and that someone likes us being part of their world.

It’s nice to know that we came to mind, when someone prepared a post. It’s nice to know that we, also, have somewhere to go with feelings we have inside,  news we want to share, a memory we need to give life to. Or when we need someone to listen to us at 1:00 a.m.

Commiseration. Sometimes just the sweet balm we need, and no more.

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This post was originally prepared for the amazing  Erin Margolin, at her original website, The Mother Load.

I still like what it says.

Happy Sunday!