What would you want to know?

It is early Sunday morning. I'm just having my second cup of coffee and catching up on a couple of blogs I am following. One is casual and upbeat in spite of life handing you some rough stuff. The other is almost painfully introspective....and somewhat mysterious. Maybe because I have only just begun to follow that blog in the past year I have missed some clues to why this person has so many 'scars' that haven't managed to heal.

I don't have a lot of patience with people who do not attempt - seriously attempt - to get past things of their childhood. There is a big difference between understanding that you react certain ways in a situation because of things from your childhood - and 'blaming' your reactions on things from your childhood. For instance one of my reactions to people being angry with me is to feel like no one loves me. I feel lost, devastated, alone, unworthy and that everything is my fault.

This does come from things that happened to me as a child. And it also comes from how I reacted as a child along with the dynamics of the rest of the household.

But you know what? I understand this! I have talked - alot - over the years with professionals and my family. I have gained an understanding of why. And I have gained an understanding of why some of those things happened the way they did - from the other person's perspective.

So now - I do not always react in that same way. And when I do, I can see what I am doing and sometimes it is even ok that I am doing that. But I don't take it as a fate - that I am always going to be that way and feel that way.

I feel that I do have control over things in my life. If you are a 'fate' person, you can blame everything and everyone else except yourself for the way things go and the way you feel. That way it is easy for you. You don't actually have to participate in your own life!

I found the introspective mysterious blog a bit depressing this morning and loved the upbeat blog. So I was wondering - if anyone started reading my blog - what would you want to know?

Maybe.....

Books are on my mind lately. I am reading like a maniac and feeling urges to review the books! I don't want my random meanderings to have to be renamed 'book reviews'. So today, I will not do a book review.

What I am thinking about is why I am in this bookish mode and why have I completely changed the pattern of my reads in the last few months. I always read. Alot. But for many years my reads have been light and always have a happy ending.

Maybe because I don't watch television much and this is my form of entertainment - but the kind of entertainment where you really don't have to think, just zone on out and everything turns out ok in the end. Kind of like watching a sitcom I guess. A bit mindless.

Maybe it was because my own life wasn't turning out ok in the end and I needed to get away from that. Maybe because I am one of those people that when I am reading - I am right there in the book, the 'real' world disappears, and if there were upsetting things in the book, I would be upset and I did not want that. I had enough upsets in my real life to deal with.

Maybe my reading is changing because my life is better lately than it was a few years ago. I feel more able to handle emotions in a book - and also in my life - without dropping into a pit of misery in my real world. It doesn't mean I have stopped living inside the books I am reading - but I can handle the emotions inside the book. So far anyway.

Julie and Julia was my initial leaving of the happily ever after romance novels I had been reading. That wasn't very traumatic - nor did it have any really depressing stories inside it.

But my next one, Still Alice, scared me before I started reading it. I was afraid. Seriously. I was afraid it would grab something inside me and rip it apart and I would drop back into my pit. I didn't! The book touched me, no question about that. I feel I lived with Alice and her family. I was inside Alice's head and could feel her emotions. But no pit of misery awaited me in my real world.

Instead - I was encouraged to continue my venture out into variety. Into books that challenge me to think and feel instead of just mush.

I'm loving it. I don't know why my pit has disappeared - seemingly for good, but I am glad it has gone.

Maybe things do turn out ok in the end.