A friend's Mum has just died. I don't know the details yet, but the lady concerned was very elderly.
It reminds me very strongly of my own Mum's death on 3rd February 2009, all of twelve years ago now. The nursing home phoned me after letting Dad know. I rushed back to the Cottage, then drove over to Dad's - where I live now - picked him up, and we went to see Mum laid out on her bed. It was the first of two dead bodies I was going to see that spring, Dad following Mum so quickly.
My first thoughts were for Dad and the need to be practical. There were many things to do, and Dad would need a combination of company and solitude. As an outlet for myself, to ease the feelings surging within, I decided to start this blog. Not to weep and grieve online, but to talk about other things and take myself away from the reality of losing one parent and supporting the other.
The opening post was published on 5th February 2009. Google says 'May 2011' but they are wrong - maybe that was the date of some major reorganisation, in which Blogger got reset. And yet the cumulative total of viewings didn't get reset. Anyway, I've been writing here for twelve years - 2,355 posts, 2,132,500 words, and 1,042,850 viewings.
The blog became on ongoing autobiography almost from the start, chronicling the main events following my breakup with M---. Good things as well as bad.
In fact, I'd say it was twelve years of necessary but life-enlarging change. I embraced the independent life and surely won out. Some might say grew up, although I'm not so sure about that! But certainly, I feel able to cope with most things now; and the ability to make big decisions, and act upon them without delay, has not ebbed away. Above all, I feel entirely responsible for whatever course my future life takes. There's no blaming anybody else if things ever go wrong. But I'm very comfortable with that.
I've also become used to living without a safety net - although to be fair, I am not short of friends who will offer a helping hand. Surely, concerned and benevolent eyes are constantly upon me. And that must come out in the general tone of my posts, which I think is upbeat and optimistic, even if I do express occasional exasperation and frustration, and sigh rather a lot!
Blogs do not go on for twelve years without a reason. In my own case, the need to divert my mind from Mum's death, and then - soon enough - Dad's as well, evaporated within months. There was so much else happening. I wanted to record it while it was going on. I wanted to state what I thought at the time. And, as fresh experiences made their mark, and I did things I'd never done before, and encountered people I'd never met before, I wanted to discuss my many shifts of perception and how these were modifying my self-view, and my priorities.
I also discovered that what might seem reasonable to me could irritate or offend other people. And that any public platform is a magnet for trolls. I made mistakes in dealing with such wreckers. But I learned which topics were provocative, and therefore best avoided. Eventually I came around to the present type of post, which sticks to my unfolding life, and whatever attracts my attention, but doesn't go into places where sneering or abusive trolls might lie in wait.
I retain a copy of all the posts I've ever written. But all those published before 2015 were removed from the blog three years ago. I decided that the early posts were either too trivial, or too contentious, or not well enough written, or did not reflect my life as it had become. I wanted the blog to appeal to a general readership. A remit to write posts that might cover a very wide range of subjects would assure the blog's survival. If you confine yourself to just one thing, it's much more likely that 'writer's block' will set in.
Mind you, there may be those who wish I would pack it all in! But that's not going to happen. I like writing; it can feel very creative; and of course, I can illustrate what I'm talking about with my own photographs. It's very satisfying to produce a lavishly-pictured post about some interesting place I've been to, or some new purchase.
Would I have ever blogged if Mum hadn't died when she did?
Its hard to say. Blogging is one of those activities you hear about, but may never personally take part in. I think people in general think it's for 'computer enthusiasts' who own their own website, and are keen on 'computing'. Which used to mean they had programming ability. Of course, the existence of platforms like Blogger and WordPress, and a number of others, meant that you needed no particular 'computer skills' at all.
But the error in perception persists. I have one friend who is an avid lover of Facebook - a social media platform I will have absolutely nothing to do with - but has never got round to clicking on my blog to see what it's like and what I write about. And I've known her for thirteen years. I believe she thinks that most blog posts are long, boring rants. Some most certainly are! And some of my early ones might have been. But I wish she would give me a try.
