Intermission.

She found herself hopelessly lost.  She cried out for help, but the echo merely bounced off the rocks and returned to her.  Frozen, she searched the misty landscape with her eyes, and... and...

I swear, I used to be pretty good at this writing gig.  (Seriously!  If you scour the Sale Half Off 75-cent bin at the right roadside vendor, you may just find an anthology with a little something by me.  Although I would never admit to having penned it.)  The problem with this thing we call a blog, at least for me, is that it is too informal and too present in the moment.  (Gah! that was TWO problems!  Where has my strict adherence to antecedent agreement gone??)

When you read a story, the natural ending is, well, the ending.  But I find myself writing about things that are happening right now, the ending simply hasn't happened yet.  Every post is a cliffhanger, and you can't just flip to the next chapter to see how our Beguiling Heroine resolves the situation.  You have to wait, and wait in real time.  And maybe, gasp, you will never know.  Maybe there is no resolution.  My blog is constantly stuck in the suspense of Act 2, without the emotional release of wrappings-up in Act 3.

If my life were a work of literature, I would waste no time selling it back to the used book store.  But instead, I have to live it.  And how tedious it can be.

I feel guilty sometimes, knowing that I am the constant bearer of bad news, that I am not able to provide the moral of the story yet.  There is no happily ever after, not even a thoughtfully bittersweet lesson learned. 

When I chose the name "Limbodacious" for this site, it was an impulse.  I wanted something that conveyed the meaning of "limbo" in some sort of clever play on words.  I tried lots of combinations, but limbodacious was the only one that wasn't taken yet.  Truth be told, I was thoroughly unhappy with it.  When I switched sites, I wanted to change it but didn't, only for the sake of continuity. 

Yet the longer I write, the more apt the title seems.  I am in limbo, I am stuck in Act 2.  But I am kind of bodacious.  Why, just the other day I got all dressed up for my job interview, and as I passed the mirror I almost said, "Hey pretty lady, what's your sign?"  (Okay, no, that's not really the kind of bodacious I mean, but really, I looked pretty good.)

Here I am, documenting that things are happening in my life, no matter how tedious it can be sometimes.  Limbo sucks, but it doesn't totally suck.  And as I look back upon my site, I can see that for every time I wrote something down, there was something happening to write about.  Some of it was bad, some of it was terrible, but some good things crept in, too.  And something good will happen again.

Sometimes I need a reminder like that to get me out of my self-pitying rut, to relieve just a little of that stuck-in-neutral pressure.  And as I read, I realize that I am just dying to know what happens next.  What will become of our Heroine?  The next page is blank, but there is a next page. 

A resolution that would make my English teachers proud will come.  There will be a denouement, and just maybe, a happy ending.  But not quite yet.

She paused, in every direction lay a fog so thick she felt it cling to her.  She continued straight into the grayness with both trepidation and determination.  As she pushed forward, the fog began to lift.  And what she saw amazed her...

Comments

[Jen]

I always loved the title of your blog, because I think everyone who has dealt w/ cancer, everyone who is in their 20's, everyone who is a human being can relate to the feeling of being in limbo. No finale is necessary, the best parts of the play are the conflicts, the struggles, the climax! I know that happier things are headed your way, new job possibilities, new home...sounds exciting to me.

[Christina]

Good entry...reads like something right out of a novel.

[cancerbaby]

I find the whole "blogging on the edge" thing quite tough, actually, and it's why I often don't blog about things that happen right away. Most of my stuff starts out "a few weeks ago," or "last month," etc. I just have to have time to absorb and reflect before I can make some kind of meaning out what is happening to me.

[Kathleen]

I do not enjoy books or movies that wrap up neatly. And don't get me started on the "lesson learned" genre.

Life is messy. It never wraps up neatly. If I had a dollar for the lessons that have wized past me or I've chose to ignore, I'm sure I'd be a millionaire.

I feel privledged when people share their real life with me. It makes me feel human and conected in a way that a neatly tied or predictable work of fiction does not.

I am pulling for your "happily ever after", but don't feel guilty about sharing (forgive the hippie phrase coming up) your truth.

[Noelle]

I know just what you mean. I've actually really been enjoying blogging about my surgery experience and all the crap leading up to it because it does have a beginning, middle, end (inciting incident, climax, dramatic conclusion? I don't remember anymore).

Blogging in real time is too weird... and if you think about it, most of our experiences in life don't have true conclusions. Instead our focus will just shift to something related. Like with house-hunting, when you find a housde, that part of the story is over... but then there is the moving part, and the furnishing part, and the Home Depot part. Thankfully all of those things are fun... well, maybe with the exception of the moving part. :)

I am babbling this morning. Hope you're having a good day!

[Jeannette]

I think the most amazing part of what you share and what others share on their blogs is the way we all connect. For me it goes beyond the cancer connection. It is the human experience. It is seeing your determination when I don't feel my own. It is getting the chance to laugh or making someone laugh at something only we could laugh at because of our connection. It is validating the crappiness of a particular situation or experience. Your writing makes that all come to life in a way that obviously keeps us coming back. (Warning: Nerd Alert ahead) And as Billy Joel once said, "Don't go changing..." (you can't say I didn't warn you)

[Monique]

I, for one, love your blog, no matter how unknown the ending or how loose the ends are...

Then again, I've never been the type to skip ahead to the ending either.

And what exactly do you mean you *used* to be good at this writing thing? Here I was duped into believing you still were! ;)

[Louise]

You've always been a good writer, ending or no ending. And I would totally buy your 75 cent anthologies.

I love all the comments to this entry. There is a lot written here that I agree with, and which I realized is applicable to me and my own problems as a "blogger."