Truth doesn't make a noise

Oh dear. When archaelogists from the future trawl their electronic nets through the dusty layers of cyberspace and get out their nano paintbrushes to dust off the crud, if they come by the last few months of this blog they may think 'mmmm, the Bridget Jones epoch - sex and the city period.' Yes things have been a little 'what the fuck am I doing?' esque, with a liberal sprinkling of 'and am I going to have to figure it out by myself with narry a distracting shag / meaningful soul mate in sight?', but there you have it.

And yet, while I am noting I am not disavowing or regretting the wingeing posts for the following reasons:
- I think it's all too easy to present a neatly edited whimsical cool facade that never admits to any undercurrents of doubt or pain.. to do this either in the blogosphere or in the flesh. This might make more slick reading, and be less unsettling, but in my opinion does us all the disservice of creating a shared illusion that things are peachy keen for all of us all the time. I really appreciate the honesty of other people who can tell their stories without the protective layer of cool, and occasionally I try to do the same. By doing this we give each other the permission to do it too.
- The atheistic/ agnostic confessional at your fingertips. To lean back and be caught. To confess and not have the world open up and swallow you. Where do we get to be just listened to, to vent, to admit to the things we aren't so proud of so they loose their power over us? Where else can we do this in the company of peers, knowing that if they choose to be there they are open to the vageries of your thoughts and presumably are fairly accepting. Surely out is better than in?
- Sharing multifaceted selves. I was out for dinner eating very good noodles with an old friend a few weeks ago and told a story about a social situation recently where I was nervous and shy so drank too much too fast and behaved a little badly. She said "but that's so unlike you" and I thought 'uhuh, because you'd know??' and reflected on how easy it is to have our inner worlds and outer worlds not match up. I choose to claim the full suite of emotional experiences as possibilities and sometimes this involves talking about the crap ones.
- Maybe this isn't the case for everyone, I'm not reallly sure (hhm, there's a research question in there somewhere...), but posts on this blog are not a faithful account of all of my daily thoughts or activities, or a reading of my average mood for a week, but a snapshot of whatever is burning a hole in my pocket most at the time that needs sharing. It doesn't mean that I am on loop being miserable just because a post is miserable.
- It's good practice. In my family growing up I felt responsible for my mother and like many girls / first borns/ only children / children of single parent families / children of parents who have been victims of family violence / children with asynchronous development I often took on a fairly adult role in providing emotional support. The corollary to this was that it was often not OK for me to express my own 'negative' emotions, and the general message I interpreted from the environment was that I was responsible for other people's feelings and that other people were tender and needed protecting from things that could upset them; and the things that could huirt them included me expressing my being sad or angry or hurt. So, in fact, the whole thing about expressing sadness, and wanting consolation or at least wanting to express it in an environment where other people can 'handle it' and don't become emotionaly distressed in response, is really important for me. And ok it's kind of lame to do it through the written word to a motley crew of friends and strangers, but I think that's ok. (Sorry, not that you are each motley, you are each lovely, but togther would make a funny dinner party).

So no, these posts not a 'cry for help' as a local friend and blog reader asked me over the weekend, but just processing, a window into a bit of a crap time, and me talking coz I can.

More thoughts on the 'am I actually looking for a life partner, is that my biological clock ticking, is this all a ruse to distract me from my life's purpose, what did that wacky dream mean about the drowning man, or do I just need to start dating and get a shag...?' conundrum later. I may even share Mermaidgrrls strategy to get me dating and my less serious but slightly amusing 'date-athon' paypal money spinning, blog material generating, people meeting idea.

Speaking of which, does anyone know a seriously good (I am very picky) Jungian analyst who is good with dreams in the Emerald City? I have had a few I'd like to bounce around with someone rather than do solo.

Oh and maybe 'well we can laugh about it now but at the time it was terrible' as a belated, and optimistic, title below?