Wednesday, May 8, 2013

Show What's In Our Hearts

Hello! This second blog post is trickier than the first. It's not starting out strong, that's for sure.

In my previous aka first post, I told you we'd talk about the title of my blog. I lied. Well, I mis-spoke. I would say mis-typed, but I definitely meant to type "title of my blog," I just actually intended to cover the URL.

On the theme of social media, I've had a love-hate-totally ignore relationship with Facebook. You all know what Facebook is. If you don't, ask a niece or nephew. In high school and college I would totally eviscerate a Facebook profile full of inside jokes and a huge list of "favorites" and quotes. For some reason I wanted to shake off any sort of constructed expectation, whether personally constructed or defined by references to friends and movies. I wanted to feel free to re-invent myself.  This involved deleting everything but those things that were truly me from my profile.  This left just a lonely name and birth date, both unwavering factors in my identity.  For those of you who have been "In a Relationship" on Facebook, just imagine that changing one day on a whim. My boyfriend at the time was a little confused.

That's the long way to say I periodically delete everything from my profile.  Along the way, I've added a third thing that now keeps itself as a core part of my identity: a quote from a child's stuffed tiger in the Calvin and Hobbes comic strip.

I don't want to steal: this is the one of the only sites I found that had this strip.
I usually give two reasons when I claim I'll never get a tattoo.  First, that I have plenty of permanent scars (more about that later, nothing drastic mostly sports injuries).  Second, I don't have anything I would hold as significantly meaningful throughout my whole life. I sought this out - to develop a core feeling or signifier that I held dear and steady in my life.  Somehow appropriately for me, a tomboy born on April Fools Day, I found it in a comic strip.  It's stuck with me for a long time.  I've put this comic strip - in color and on canvas - on birthday and Christmas wish lists after I saw it in a coffee shop.  I hadn't thought about it in a WHILE until I felt I needed to come up with a permanent home online.  It's what I reached for as meaningful, even after all these years, and I believe it steadfastly.  I understand that people make mistakes.  But this is why, when I do, I am so overly apologetic.  Because I want my actions (apologizing) to show what's in my heart.  Eh, it's something to strive for.

If you have any ideas on making this comic into some cool art, please let me know!!

Back to the title, I guess that story leads to "Keeping It All Together, Mostly."  Which, in the spirit of that story, might eventually change.

Okay, I've delivered on my promise!  Until next time.

KMB

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