Permission

Better now.
Not 100% better but I'm feeling happier and able to function.

The words of my bloggy friend Genevra helped. She helped me to identify what I was really feeling, which was grief.

As she wrote in a post comment:

Your posts of late have struck me as someone who is in the grieving process, just not for someone who has actually died. More of a dream and/or expectation of how your life was suppose to have turned out by the time you were the age you are fast approaching.

Grieving the deaths of hopes and dreams is just hard as grieving the passing of a person, in my opinion. Maybe harder, because people can concretely understand how it feels or must feel to have someone you love die. I think it is harder when it is not a concrete thing.

I had begun to identify that myself when I thought that if I were widowed, others would acknowledge my loss. If I were dealing with a divorce, others would surround me with support. If I had lost a child, my friends would cry with me. But because I am grieving the loss of something I have never had... most people can't see that big gaping hole.

Thank you Genevra for giving me permission to grieve. Quoting Caroline Myss, she wrote:

"... sometimes the greatest gift another human being could give another was to just sit with them through their grief...."

I'll sit with you.

What a friend!

The other thing that irked me was the anonymous comment saying she had removed me from her RSS feed based on my posts the past few weeks.

That stung, because she indicated that a friend of mine had first shared my blog with her... and because less than a handful of my friends even know about my blog I guessed that the person she was referring to is the same friend who abandoned me when things got great for her and really tough for me.
When I went through a rather glamorous phase of life, she was bragging about me in a "That's my friend!" sort of way. Expressing her envy of a lifestyle that looked more glamorous than it was... but when the ride was over and I hit the ground... she hit the road. (The link above is the beginning of that story. Someday I'll share the rest of it. It isn't pretty and it hurts. This bitter post was in response to her truth.) So here this stranger was following the same pattern as this hurtful friend. I hope they have a great time together!

Anyway, it brought all those hurtful feelings back (clearly, when that was the LAST thing I needed!!!) and when I think of Miss Anonymous I see the face of that fair-weather friend and it makes my guts hurt.

Bottom-line, why did Anonymous tell me that she removed me from her feed, other than to be hurtful? Why not just remove it and move on? I mean, I don't care if I have readers or not (mostly - of course it's nice to have comments and of course I check for them!) I have not monetized my blog, I don't check my stats... I don't even know how to do. So the only motivation for Anonymous to point out that she removed mine from her feed was a virtual slap in the face.

And who needs friends like that?!

I know I'd be the bigger person if I didn't even acknowledge Anonymous... but the truth is, I'm not that big.