how are you?

i really, really, really, really, really, really, really, 
miss 
when i used to be able to speak freely on this blog.
now i cannot. i started getting stuck when i knew my boss, years ago, was looking. then it worsened when my daughter's school secretary stopped me to say she read it often. i came to the slow realization that members of my extended family were one by one finding this blog. and my identity here became not the writer, but the more social version of myself. which is death to great writing. which is death to freedom of spirit and therefore for me, does not provide the mental health benefits that for so many years roared rich and full from here, like a great river. i could write it out, and i would feel free, and calm, and my mind would be at peace, and some of you would write me and comment, and we would connect, and i felt right with the world.

i miss it.

it will never be like that again, in part because my oldest child is now 19 and his view on this blog has changed from a metamorphosis that went like this:
completely unaware
partial awareness with total indifference
awareness with indifference
amusement with slight interest
irritation
embarrassment
denial

i will not start an anon blog, which would not provide the same experience. it's not what i want. i want what everyone wants, but some of us want more wildly, enduringly and in more areas of life- i want to be free. not that bullshit freedom where you say whatever you want no matter who it hurts, the one where you do whatever you like no matter the hearts you break. no the freedom where the person you are- and the way that you experience life and are naturally drawn to experience life, over and over, or all at once and always- where that person is the most person you are. it is the truth we understand from the time we are in second grade and dare to wear the wrong shoes to school, the truth that being who you are is a way to be alive that nothing else compares to. the more secrets we keep, the less alive we feel. another layer is in between us and the rawness of connection, the rawness of feeling the synapses of the air crackle around us. energy responds to energy. repression brings more repression, it brings pressure, and that pressure brings pain, and that pain, in human beings, brings depression, rage, or simply… 'most men live lives of quiet desperation'. 

i am not quiet, and not desperate.

but i am deeply sad. and although i am also other things, most of all in love with my children and aware of the gift and beauty of life, i am also tired of no one knowing how i feel because no one ever asks. lord knows as mothers, our children do not even realize we are real and complete human beings just like them until they are in their twenties. 

you didn't ask, but reading these words? coming here? that is the most wide open ask of all- a reader, and a writer, together on a page.

so now- How Are You?