BufBloPoFo 09 DayFourteen

So are you sad it’s almost done? Are you going to miss all of your fellow participants? Well, your assignment is to give us a farewell speech. I’m continually amazed that anyone decided to play along with the BufBloPoFo. I say you take it easy tomorrow for your last day and just post a quick “so long” to your fellow participants.

It occurs to me as I re-read my work of the last two weeks, that I was very open and confessional in my approach to BufBloPoFo. Notwithstanding the one attempt at humor I offerred where I lambasted my husband's housework contributions, I notice a distinctly dark and documentarian style to my posts. Well, I must admit I can be kind of dark as it is, but I have also been going through a sort of third-life crisis for the last nine months, and it is reflected in what I have put out there. I wear my heart on my sleeve and have often been accused of giving up too much, but I am not sure I know how to be any other way. Jen and I grew up in a house of secrets and I apparently have run so far from that, I am an open book entirely.

I am not a creative writer. I find it hard to concoct names, faces, places and situations out of the recesses of my imagination. When I read a work of amazing intelligence and vision, like this novel by Suri Hustvedt, which I just finished, I am alternately stunned and more than a little jealous:

http://www.amazon.com/What-Loved-Novel-Siri-Hustvedt/dp/0312421192

I just don't have it in me. But what I can do, what I do not shrink from, is openly share my own experiences: my joys, sorrows and fears. My hope is that this sharing goes both ways. Maybe I amuse or talk about something that we all go through, but don't often discuss openly. But I also confess to selfish motives. I have, most of the time anyway, no answers, just questions. My wish is that by sharing them, I will receive enlightenment, and hopefully take another baby step in figuring out myself and this world in which we live.

I am going offline for the next week or so, except for the possibility of a return to a "My End or Yours?" with Jen in the coming days. I appreciate those of you who hung in there with me, and read some, if not all of my musings for the last fortnight. I want to thank Mike Garvey for coming up with a novel exercise like BufBloPoFo that forced me to stretch myself even as I was already a bit overextended. I want to thank my fellow participating bloggers who entertained me, and often intimidated me with their own brilliance.