Bridges

Comments on the last post were actually healthy, s'mores notwithstanding: CLC asked why on earth people read blogs like ours who aren't experiencing "it." Niobe asked something similar here and I think the answers were telling. I know people read my blog who haven't experienced loss, but they come here because they've experienced something else. Maybe something similar. Maybe a different form of grief. Some come because they simply want to know, and are actually inspired, or find a way to put some relativity on their own lives. Some simply come because they've become "friends," and want to know more about me.

I personally think that's all lovely, and I truly appreciate everyone who finds the time to read the nonsense I occasionally find time to put up here. Knowing some of my readers haven't been through this exact drama actually comforts me. Knowing they read me makes me feel less like an oddity, more like just another gal who got slammed with some shit. And I'm here to tell them, they're good people for facing it. Better than a lot of people in my real life, better than some of my family.

Of course there's the occasional gawker, the accident-gaper, the person with the superiority complex, who I guess feels a bit intimidated by Martha Stewart, but not so much by the likes of us -- or those with myriad other problems, be it struggling with infertility, the possibility of a planned c-section, or just re-working their life philosophy. There are always those who read not to comfort, but to judge, and turn what they've read back into their life with the message: "I could do better." Um, Good for you? But that's not how you build community though, or understand, or meet people half-way, or reach out a hand, or offer sympathy, or listen.

For the majority of us/you, it pays to reach out and discover a bit of the universe you may know nothing about. Women (and men!) who live their days with grief, or with children with disabilities, or a disability of their own, or addiction, or sobriety, or cancer, or infertility, or scars of a traumatic emotional sort. Fellow bloggers can teach us strength, dignity, power, and yes, sometimes, even for the hard-hearted and cynical among us, a wee bit about hope.

Lolli began Bridges to compile these stories in one place. Fittingly, today I'm a guest blogger there, an oldie-but-goodie from GITW. Don't just read me, please poke through and see who else you discover. In a good way.