People have told me at various times in my life that I should write my autobiography. It's not that I've been unwilling to do so, but rather I always kept waiting for my life to "settle down", which it never seems to do (settle down, I mean). But I've thought about it a lot and I've kept various artifacts as sort of evidence of various aspects of and events of my life. I will be sharing some of these with you on this site as well as some mundane accounts and more contemplative musings about things I've experienced. While I don't claim to be an "any man", I'm sure many people will relate to one thing or another of what I share here.
Also, as it turns out, though, I seem to have a lot of enemies, and practically no friends. I could take that as impetus to let everything sort of hang out - I mean, I don't really have to worry about losing friends at this point, if you catch my drift. However, as of this writing, I have opted to use a pseudonym and most of the names here will likewise be pseudonymous. At some point, though, this won't be a perfect system, so I'm sure someone somewhere will figure out who I am. This has been somewhat of a deterrent to me for starting on this venture, but I have this sort of a calling that I have to do this. So we'll see what happens.
As I've thought about an approach to writing my autobiography I've tried to think of a sort of theme to tie everything together. At this point, I'm thinking that a lot of my adult experiences sort of fit the Greek tragicomedy mode. Well, I'm no literature expert, but my understanding is that in Greek tragedies the hero generally has a tragic flaw that leads to his or her downfall. In many of the major events in my adult life, I think my flaw has been to too unbendingly stick to something I believe in, a value. Well, it's debatable whether I was "too unbending" and in hindsight I can also see better ways I could have stuck to my values. But life is like that, now, isn't it? I don't think I'm the only one on the planet that in hindsight might have done this or that differently. But not everyone would have stuck so much to what he or she believes in to pay the prices I've paid for doing just that. So that's my tragic flaw, at least in my view on my life.
So how did I pick the name of this blog? Well, one thing I've noticed in blogs is that they seem to be almost universally very upbeat. Sometimes I wonder if writers of blogs ever fight with their spouse/significant other or have problems at work or get seriously ill. It's like they write as if they see life through rose colored glasses. I'm afraid that if I do anything differently that that, I will be seen as a pessimist. However, I see myself as more of a realist. So I'm going to present my life through multi-colored lenses.
I'm also going to present my life in rather a post-modern way, presenting snippets here and there; so the times and places will be all mixed up and not presented in chronological order. My life might be seen as a sort of a puzzle or mystery, but also mixing it up will allow me to jump between things that are fun or light and those that are more serious, sad or maddening. I'll also be able to jump between the quotidian and the more philosophical, political and theological.
As I prepare for this venture, I'm thinking that readers might have a variety of responses, either to the blog as a whole, to what they understand about me as a person, and/or to some specific entry or aspect of the blog. Some might see it as intriguing, others might think I'm stupid. Still others might get offended or even angry at what I say here. I'm sure many will disagree with something or the other I say. I just want you to know upfront, that you have my permission to have any, none or all of these response, and I won't be particularly surprised. In fact, not much surprises me. I'll just say that some aspects of my life run like a spy novel and if you've had the experiences I have, you'd understand that not much phases me any more. One thing I will say about this though, is that I've had fibromyalgia since 2007 and my life has been very stressful that whole time. I really try to avoid stress as it can trigger a fibromyalgia flare, which is the last thing I need at this point. So if to many responses are negative I might have to step back a bit. I don't say that to in insinuate that you shouldn't respond as you feel you should, but rather to explain that to protect my health I may have to step back a bit if this gets to stressful.
The big question any of us can ask of ourselves is "who am I?" I mean really, truly, who are you? who am I? Is it who I say I am? Is it a composite of my experiences? Is it my beliefs and values? Is it my relationships? (e.g., I'm a daughter, friends, etc.) Is it who someone else says I am? As it turns out, there really isn't anyone that has a complete experience of who I am. I mean, family or friends that have seen me through everything. My family has seen me through more than anyone else, but recent experiences indicate that they really don't understand the last 20 years (or more) of my life So my view of who I am is mine alone, which is rather lonely, to say the least, but that's as it is. In this blog you'll get an idea of who I am, and maybe in the process you'll think about who you are too. Or maybe not.
So, without any more ado, let the show begin!
Meg Capalini
