The Worst of Anyone

(for current posts please click the “Posts” tab at the top of the page)

“And if I tried
to give you something else,
something outside of myself,
you would not know
that the worst of anyone
can be, finally,
an accident of hope.”

Imagine, if you will, that you are standing in a vast intersection of people and information.  Enormous train station is a common metaphor.  Or airport.  Pick one, I don’t care.  I’m after the bustle and the curious anonymity that one acquires there.  Now you see a notebook seemingly abandoned on a counter.  Maybe you’re attracted to it because of the color.  Maybe because of the words you read on the cover in a quick glance.  Maybe the handwriting seems familiar and you think you know the person who left it there.  Maybe you’ve been looking for this specific notebook.  Maybe someone told you about it.

It’s just sitting there, opened to the first page, in a public space.  It must be meant to be read, correct?  The author obviously wants it to be read by any and all who come along or it wouldn’t have been put on display in such a public space. 

This is true.

This notebook of various stories, thought-trains, evaluations, self-revelation, reviews, lists, and dialogue has been left open for the consumption of friends, foes, family and strangers alike.  But you can never forget that this is anything other than what it is: a personal journal — complete with all my own biases, quirks, blindnesses, imperfect opinions, flawed judgment, and cloudy experiences.  It is more of a memoir than an autobiography. It is not definitive of anyone else’s experiences but mine.  Even the stories that involve other people are not definitive of anything other than my perspective at that moment.

If you continue past this page into the current posts and archives, you are entering my own little universe where I will not apologize for the expression of my feelings.  Neither will I justify them; nor does writing them down mean that they will stay that way forever and ever and ever.  I retain the right to change my mind about how I feel about something or someone.  But I will leave the trace of my feelings up because that is how I grow and learn and yet stay who I am.  I do my best to be as gracious and generous as I can to the people that I’m writing about, and I’m constantly trying to grow and learn and mature, but in the end there are some things that I need to say, and this is where I’m going to say them.  If you don’t want to hear me, if you don’t want to know this part of me, then don’t continue.  This blog is offered for public consumption, but that doesn’t mean that you should or need to read it.

I’ve thought about taking this blog down, but for now I’m not going to.  Because I get emails from people thanking me for writing about what I write about.  People who are struggling; people who are alone; people who are looking for hope and reassurance and community and articulation.  In this my blog has served the purpose I intended for it when I chose its name.  So, for those of you who are new here, or who have recently read something that you can’t believe I chose not to keep private, I encourage you to click on the little Why tab at the top of the page and read the poem that serves as a mission statement for this blog.