Writing through the loneliness

As a rule, I don't keep a journal. I used to. I have about 8 years of life stored in a box in a storage unit. I guess it was reading these journals at an older age that I decided not to keep one anymore. I suppose one might feel that a blog is a journal, but I disagree. A blog is written with the intent that others will read it; it is formatted; it has a subject; it is usually checked for grammar and spelling.

When I was away this summer, I started the blog Jessika in Nevada and enjoyed writing about the missions I was on and every once and a while, I actually wrote a good piece that was personal. I recently went over some of these posts and pieces I didn't publish and thought they were pretty good. I write quite well when it is a descriptive and reflective piece. Editorial is fine; however, it is hard to get a good flow going because of the bouts of research involved to allow some kind of coherency.

My mind (like most people) is always thinking. Some of it is worrying about things, but most of it is narration and much of it makes me chuckle. However, I can be carried away and a screenplay develops in my head that I can't stop.

I don't know why I don't write more; I probably should. I am sure I would be less stressed.

I came to the realization the other day that I was lonely. I enjoy my time with my co-workers and my husband but they are permanent, a bit like furniture (I hope this doesn't sound mean). The conversation is the same, the arguments are the same, the comments are the same, and the routine is the same. Therefore, I am lonely. Some may say I am just bored, but to me boredom is something different. Boredom is a laziness to find things to do, where as a lack of a variety of human interaction is loneliness. At work, I like to talk to people but I can't because the queue extends past the sandwich refrigerator and people get grumpy when they haven't had their caffeine and insulin fix.

I get choked up when I think about this realization and the majority extends to the fact that I miss my family (see right there, watery eyes). Facebook led me to this epiphany. The amount of times I log onto my page is staggering. A couple of weeks ago I had 90 "friends" (which isn't that many by most people's standards). These "friends" included people from university, family, co-workers, people I grew up with and didn't talk to anymore, and people I still talk to or were good friends in high school and therefore e-mail from time to time. Suddenly I became overwhelmed by the feeds from people I hadn't liked since elementary school, never thought about until I saw their name on the "People You May Know" list, or people who I just didn't really know. When my "friends" list hit 90 a light went on in my head...I didn't care about most of these people, and I immediately deleted 45 of them. POW! Just like that.

I am so excited about my "friends" list now. It contains people I actually care about. More importantly, it contains family whom I am excited to read about. The following people make my day happy after logging onto Facebook:

Peter, Bryna, Carol, Amanda and Flip (though they are never on), Jared, Kathleen, Marya, Eric, Jan, Danny, Molly, Ron M. (the true Ron, as he says), Darby, Ben R., Ben W., Andrea, Shinee, Johnny and Matt.

Thanks guys for making me feel a little less lonely.