"Desire is the Opposite of Death" - Tennessee Williams

You know how you can get really, really busy? And then you get behind? And then you try to catch up? And then you are so far behind, that catching up is impossible? And then you get overwhelmed? And then you give up trying to catch up? And then you just give up? And then you realized how much you miss it? Well ... that is where I am at right now.

I love to blog. I love reading others people's blogs and pouring my heart out on a computer screen. I love seeing pictures of how everyones kids are growing. I love reading about how the silly or mundane add up to something documented that might seem trivial at the time, but captured a moment of time in someones life.

Is Facebook the enemy? Yes. I am able to catch a sentence here and there: so-and-so is pregnant, so-and-so just got back from Denver, so-and-so had the most amazing creme brulee of her life, so-and-so just shared pictures of their Hawaii trip, so-and-so just celebrated their grandma's 70th birthday. We get enough snippets to put together a puzzle. And because we love all our friends who live all over the world, we are happy to have the pieces of the puzzle.

Where else could I reconnect with my cousin who I am not super close to, haven't seen since my grandmother's funeral, and have never met his wife and daughter? Turns out, he is an amazing man who has a PhD in geography, is a university professor, travels the world studying about poverty, and just got back from from India.

Or my daughter's 1st and 2nd grade teacher who is getting her PhD at Columbia University and lives the greatest NYC single ever? She is my "Sex in the City" friend who is a genius and so kind. I get to know all the coolest places and people through her.

I KEEP IN TOUCH with all my friends from our former homes. This is awesome. Otherwise I would miss people so badly that it would be unbearable. Now when I visit, we don't have to waste our precious time with the catch-up phase and we can jump right into the here and now forming new memories.

So ... I have this love/hate relationship with Facebook. Where is the hate? I hate that so many of my blogging friends (myself included) have stopped or slowed their blogging because Facebook is so much faster and easy and new and fun.

What Facebook doesn't do is allow for the pouring out of one's soul. I miss the writing. I miss knowing the background info. It is the difference of a Ken Burns' documentary and the ticker tape at the bottom of cable news.

I will make no promises here. My schedule has just freed up quite a bit. That means my family will once again get home cooked meals, I will use coupons and I will write. I really love to write. But it is time consuming. I just can't slap the words on the screen. It is like cooking: I decide what I will cook, get my recipe, gather the ingredients, begin cooking, taste for seasoning corrections, put it on the table and hope beyond hope that my husband and children will find it edible. For writing, I need ideas and I start the typing, editing, rereads and corrections. I have a number of projects going on in writing right now. I have one that will soon be published and a few others in the pipeline.

No promises. Just a desire. Which, according to Tennessee Williams in A Street Car Named Desire "is the opposite of death." So desire to keep my blog alive is the opposite of the death of my blog. Right?