The Blog Not

In mathematics you can express all that something isn’t by stating the thing and including a ‘not’ symbol after it. It is basically an apostrophe like the same one you would find in ‘don’t’. I suppose that’s where the Saturday Night Live skit called Wayne’s World got the infamous expression of the word. For example, “I’m going to get up at 5am tomorrow and go for a long run. Not!”

Being someone who spouts off some pretty personal and exposed stuff about myself in my blog, one might assume that the whole story is present in the writing. To this I must say: I write everything I’m thinking, feeling and doing. Not!

I recently posted a thing about being selfish. At the time I wrote it I never intended to share it. Then a late hour of the night came and I decided to do an experiment and share what was not meant to be shared. My husband is kind enough to give me superficial feedback on my posts after they are up and running and he has read them. Most of the time he is kind, neutral and/or positive. This time he paused and said: ‘I’m not sure what I think about that one.’ He found it too self-deprecating. Ah! There! Finally I had found the line I was looking for. The one where we know we’ve gone too far. I knew how I had said too much at the time, but sometimes we have to fall off the edge to know where it is.

My defense to him was that I didn’t think it was fair to go on about positive, life-changing stuff all the time. A blog should add to the world, not take away from it, I believe. Yet if all you have to say are a series of rantings and experiences about what you CAN do and think, how is it possible to reference these without the things you CAN’T do or get your head around. I’m not one for thinking that whining is very productive and noble but I think it is a necessary dark to compliment the light in small doses.

A painter friend recently posted on her blog about the colour purple with this in mind. As a writer (definition: she who writes things down), I needed to explore something dark to get to the light. But the whole story, this will never be.

Here are some things I will never write about. The blog ‘not’, if you will:

1. Things that I am doing that might get me or someone else into trouble somehow.
2. Things that I think would be hurtful to other people.
3. Self-absorbed ideas that are spawned solely from ego (good luck getting this one right, hey?)
4. The private business of others.
5. The negative thoughts I have about wanting out of parts of my life sometimes.
6. My weight, dress size or waist circumference.
7. Personal stories that do not find a way to resolve themselves or inspire change in me (and potentially others).
8. Opinions about the world that do not find a way to resolve themselves or inspire change in me (and potentially others).
9. Communications that do not intend to reach out to others and find ways to bridge differences.
10. A bunch of other stuff that I just won’t say right now.