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| Happiness and finger traps |
Cue an impromptu glimpse into an alternate reality filled with wet wipes where I am the keeper of old age, memories, lonesomeness, and felines who will feast on my shriveled eyes the minute my corpse has decomposed to the exact point of paté-like yumminess.
If I was indeed destined for the lesser life – as my genitor always implied with her standard 'you'll never-ness' reply that accompanied the announcement of any new idea or project of mine – the 990 characters plus emoticon deposited in my comment box late 2011 have averted this fate.
In fact, maybe I should give credit to the one who reluctantly expelled me from her womb for enabling love in the most roundabout way...
In fact, maybe I should give credit to the one who reluctantly expelled me from her womb for enabling love in the most roundabout way...
Hadn't it been for a childhood that felt like punishment for the mere act of being alive, I wouldn't have acquired the habit of dreaming with my eyes open and question marks on the tip of my tongue, or of forcing myself to sit on the outside of an unhappiness my mother insisted on naming after me; I wouldn't have run away into the world driven by a curiosity that could never be sated no matter how many books I fed it (in a pre-web era when literature was my snuggle blanket of choice); I wouldn't have had any reason to download my soft and squishy insides online that particular day.
That day was the day the internet chose to answer back using the comment box as a step ladder into my head.
That day was the day the internet chose to answer back using the comment box as a step ladder into my head.
To say I wasn't expecting any of this would only be partly true – naming a blog The Ideal Wife Giveaway and immediately giving up on the remotest possibility of connection would be contrary to even my contrarian nature.
But whether love could ever spring up from the many opportunities to revel in schadenfreude that I was dishing out was another matter.
This was gawkward copy and I knew it.
Because I was living and breathing every single word, every single punctuation mark, every single white space on the screen.
And yet, deep inside that throbbing lump of flesh in my chest – against all odds and despite empirical evidence to the contrary – I still believed that people were good. I also believed that the internet was the best tool available to amplify that goodness and bulldoze all those barriers – social, psychological, religious, financial, geographical, educational, imaginary – that we so easily put up because we're used to looking for the difference that divides rather than the resemblance that unites.
At the time I started this lifelog, I lived as a semi-hermit on a mid-Atlantic island and often went for days without speaking to another soul, or even leaving the house. When I did, it was either very early in the morning, or under the cover of darkness to minimize the chances of meeting anyone. My only destinations were the farmers' market and the grocery store, both of which I reached through back streets, the streets that didn't go past those buildings that held everything I had worked for and loved on the island. But although I deliberately shunned social interaction in my environment, I still felt, dreamt, opined, emoted and communicated.
Online.
I was a fully functional being in a virtual world, a world that I saw as an extension of my reality rather than a separate entity. I was still me, albeit as an abstraction of flesh and bones, a physical being turned words. Rather than be reductive, this shift was empowering because it freed me from the constraints of geography, physical appearance, and accent, all of which suddenly became irrelevant. After years on an island where my being foreign – and thus somewhat exotic-looking in the eyes of the locals – kept attracting the wrong kind of attention, this was a refreshing and liberating change.
Growing up inside books and listening to the BBC World Service had taught me early on that the world was more than where I happened to be standing. The world was here and out there at the same time, and – like it or not – I was part of it even though I often felt that I was out of place, that I didn't belong.
All along, I always had a choice: I could be silent and clam shut, or I could use words to tap into the human experience and reach out.
As a teenager, I was a prolific letter writer and quickly grew used to the world landing on my doormat in blue and red airmail envelopes. When I first got online some 20 years ago, I exulted with the connectedness possibilities of this new medium called internet.
And I am still exulting on a daily basis, several times a day.
It's this context that made The Ideal Wife Giveaway possible. It's this context that, from day one, nourished the defiant hope that someone out there might relate.
From the moment the internet answered back, this lifelog became the platform that birthed a deep bond – sight unseen – between two people half a world apart; the platform that built trust one keystroke at a time; the platform where guerilla happiness happened.
Yes, against all odds. Always against all odds.
Love grew because we chose – and agreed – to be ourselves, unedited, deliberately leaving no room for taboos, awkwardness, or appearances.
Together, we decided to let go of our many limiting beliefs about ourselves and each other.
Together, we started offloading the considerable amount of baggage we had accumulated during our combined 77 years alive.
Although painful and uneasy on occasions, this shedding of old skin and layers felt good because it felt natural.
This was gawkward copy and I knew it.
Because I was living and breathing every single word, every single punctuation mark, every single white space on the screen.
And yet, deep inside that throbbing lump of flesh in my chest – against all odds and despite empirical evidence to the contrary – I still believed that people were good. I also believed that the internet was the best tool available to amplify that goodness and bulldoze all those barriers – social, psychological, religious, financial, geographical, educational, imaginary – that we so easily put up because we're used to looking for the difference that divides rather than the resemblance that unites.
At the time I started this lifelog, I lived as a semi-hermit on a mid-Atlantic island and often went for days without speaking to another soul, or even leaving the house. When I did, it was either very early in the morning, or under the cover of darkness to minimize the chances of meeting anyone. My only destinations were the farmers' market and the grocery store, both of which I reached through back streets, the streets that didn't go past those buildings that held everything I had worked for and loved on the island. But although I deliberately shunned social interaction in my environment, I still felt, dreamt, opined, emoted and communicated.
Online.
I was a fully functional being in a virtual world, a world that I saw as an extension of my reality rather than a separate entity. I was still me, albeit as an abstraction of flesh and bones, a physical being turned words. Rather than be reductive, this shift was empowering because it freed me from the constraints of geography, physical appearance, and accent, all of which suddenly became irrelevant. After years on an island where my being foreign – and thus somewhat exotic-looking in the eyes of the locals – kept attracting the wrong kind of attention, this was a refreshing and liberating change.
Growing up inside books and listening to the BBC World Service had taught me early on that the world was more than where I happened to be standing. The world was here and out there at the same time, and – like it or not – I was part of it even though I often felt that I was out of place, that I didn't belong.
All along, I always had a choice: I could be silent and clam shut, or I could use words to tap into the human experience and reach out.
As a teenager, I was a prolific letter writer and quickly grew used to the world landing on my doormat in blue and red airmail envelopes. When I first got online some 20 years ago, I exulted with the connectedness possibilities of this new medium called internet.
And I am still exulting on a daily basis, several times a day.
It's this context that made The Ideal Wife Giveaway possible. It's this context that, from day one, nourished the defiant hope that someone out there might relate.
From the moment the internet answered back, this lifelog became the platform that birthed a deep bond – sight unseen – between two people half a world apart; the platform that built trust one keystroke at a time; the platform where guerilla happiness happened.
Yes, against all odds. Always against all odds.
Love grew because we chose – and agreed – to be ourselves, unedited, deliberately leaving no room for taboos, awkwardness, or appearances.
Together, we decided to let go of our many limiting beliefs about ourselves and each other.
Together, we started offloading the considerable amount of baggage we had accumulated during our combined 77 years alive.
Although painful and uneasy on occasions, this shedding of old skin and layers felt good because it felt natural.
Almost two years to the day since my first post here, moist-eyed and giggly with nerves, my partner and I got married and became each other's forever Christmas present in front of two friends, a judge and a glass octopus.
We feel like revolutionaries.
We feel like revolutionaries.
