booandbunny

I know you thought you were done arguing the whole flat vs. round thing more than 500 years ago, but I’m here to tell you that you’ve lost this second round. Sorry, despite the common moniker “blogo-sphere” the existence out here is quite flat. I know. I fell off. But hey, I’m back to tell you about the trip.

No sea monsters at the end. Not even any water. Just a vastness of space filled with party planning, party execution and party clean up. I interrupted the space with everyday things such as a playdate for Mr. 5 and making a work deadline, but more on that in a minute.

I thought I was managing things well. While not posting anything myself I had been able to keep up with the company I’d made out here for a few days before I dropped off the edge all together. You see it isn’t a sphere, but millions of planes intersecting at unimaginable angles. I’ve been lucky to have so many stop at mine and stay a minute. Then I stop at theirs and stay a minute. Soon minutes become hours because you keep intersecting more and more interesting planes to explore. So some weaning had to occur if I were to prepare everything for my impending guests and make that deadline.

Things were going well as by last Wednesday I had weaned myself completely from this world and was deep in the throws of scrubbing my kitchen floor and shuttling children to sports when the floor fell out from under me. I had misunderstood my assignment and had to re-write my article on infusions. Correction, article on infused liquids.

So, in the course of proving that the blogo-sphere is flat I proved something else, in the lyrics of Karyn White: “I’m not your Superwoman!” Sure I can look as though I’m doing it all, but the resulting meltdown caused me to go deep inside and admit to myself that I’m not Superwoman. SuperMom. Whoever. And it’s not worth trying to be.

So I slid off the end of my blogo-plane and took everything I’d worked so hard to build this year down with me. The journals are tucked in corners, out of sight of visitors, so many partial sentences and half scratches etched inside. The Total Gym is gathering dust at the end of the bed. Most every ounce of creative juice slipped from me through my vocal chords as my fingertips gave way and I let go of my blogo-plane, screaming all the way to the bottom.

But it wasn’t like those stories before your first trip, Chris. No demons or devils, just a lot of rungs to climb to get back where I feel the new me belongs.

You asked an interesting question the other day. You wanted to know, if I truly had fallen off the edge of a flat world, how did it feel and how did I find my way back. Well, here’s your answer.

After a day of celebrating my daughter with family I was full of love, many kinds of love, kinds I can’t get into here as this letter would be far too long. What I hadn’t filled myself with was food. I hadn’t had much the day before either … unless you count wine and tobacco. Yes, when I fell off the edge I crashed hard into old unhealthy patterns of Marlboro Lights and mixed drinks. Two beloved vices I have squeezed out of my life in the name of living healthier. It was nothing to rival the excess of the college years (thank goodness), but without much else in my stomach I paid the price. So after a fabulous day I woke about 2 a.m. with my insides raging. Physical drainage caused the mind to run roughshod through a jungle of neglected, overblown real-life tasks to catch up on. I was having a hard time calming myself down. I started prioritizing and that’s when I heard it. The items on my to-do list were thundering through my head … like the sound of a rope ladder falling many stories down the side of one of your original ships.

And that’s when I knew. In the post-party silence I would get back to taking care of me – eat right a few days in a row, get some sleep, take a machete to that jungle of annoying tasks such as bill paying and clothes washing – I would climb those rungs back up to where I really wanted to be.

So here I am, back on my blogo-plane of existence, proof, Chris, that it’s no sphere out here at all. You won the first round by bumping into a new world. I won this round by bumping into my old self and remembering why I left her down there with no ladder.

I’ve got more brush to clear. Write back soon.

Love,
Laura

// posted by HoBess @ 5/11/2006 02:01:00 PM