The Waiting Room

I was chatting with old blog friend on FB, when the "Waiting Room" came into the conversation. "Wasn't that the name of your old blog?", she asked. "Yep," I replied. "I still blog there. Not too many of our academic blog community blogs anymore. I'm still doing it because it's the only place where I feel comfortable saying what I want to say and being my authentic self."

I've written about missing the old days of the blog community. I met some amazing folks and have learned a great deal from them. It was a community of academics sharing their lives inside and outside of academia. It was fun.

My issues with FB, as maybe it is for some folks, is that I feel I have to balance different identities. There are people that are from my hometown, people from my college and Lake Effect Snow Central days, and my academic friends. The latter two groups know me as the person that I am now. But, the hometown folk are a different story.

I would love to just be the authentic version of myself on FB, all day, everyday, Sundays included. But, I have to mute myself on certain things because I still have family in that neck of the woods, who would probably take issues with me. Not so much from my side of the family; I get my outspoken nature from my mom. But, I grew up in a small town and people love to talk. My in-laws would flip their shit over a lot of stuff that I say. And, I do not want Husband to have to bear the brunt of comments from my in-laws. For example, my super-Catholic in-laws would be none to pleased about Husband and I being agnostic-atheists. So, I keep this space and my Twitter space for where I express myself the way that I want to express myself.

It takes a lot of energy to do this. But, in weighing the alternative, it's a lot less stressful than having Husband and I deal with a lot of crap. We still get crap about moving away from our hometown. We abandoned our hometown almost 25 years ago, and we STILL get grief about it. In fact, over Thanksgiving, my father-in-law ask me if we are going to move back, now that I am doing so much better with the RA. Um, the reason WHY I am doing better is because I am living in a warmer climate. How would moving back to cold and snow maintain my remission? He was not happy about that response.

So...yeah...it's frustrating.

That's why I am still here. I'm recommitting to this space because I need it.  I am hoping that I can continue to connect with old friends and make connections with some new ones. So, if you've been lurking, please come out of the shadows and say "Hello". Even if you are not an academic, give me a shout out. Dog stuff, RA/FMS stuff, law stuff, it's all good. And if you been around for a while, just let me know how you are.

Maybe, we can resurrect the blog community.