My latest light bulb of Irony turned on a couple of months ago. I was having quite the great week; won a parking space for a month at work, celebrated 6 months of sobriety, and was stumbled upon by a group of bloggers that not only enjoyed my present state of writing, but wanted me to jump onto their virtual boat of Bloggers Extraordinaire and submit my musings for My Chosen People to read.
My first thought was...Whaat?! My second thought was, of course, a channeling of my inner New Jersey Skeptic. Of course they want to sell me something, put me on a massive spamasstical mailing list and drag me into a world of corruption and mass hysteria. (Do you think I've watched too many episodes of CSI? Maybe.) I thanked them from the bottom of my heart, felt my cheeks redden like an emerging sunrise, then instantly scoffed.. My inner skeptic immediately took over, taunting me with thoughts like "surely they want something" and "do I Look like a sympathy quota to you".?!
I had been turned down a couple of months ago by a blogging network, so my skepticism held a bit of history and merit. Once upon a time, I recall entering a contest measuring my writing ability. I thought everyone would jump on my Blogging Bandwagon because I had confidence that I was a good writer. I was so busy feeling overly confident that I didn't see the Semi Truck of Discontent heading for me. I was hyped up from secretly thinking my writing was an easy shoo-in; a mixture of incredible wit and imagination only shared by those, like myself, lucky enough to realize our enormous potential. As fast as my hand-picked-for-the-Second-Coming (of Oprah, not Jesus) began, it was just as quickly thrown in the shooter. My writing was judged, thwarted and dismissed as road kill, for dropping the occasional, but often necessary, F bomb.
Since my protective shield of skepticism was in place, it didn't take long to recover and basically Get Back on the Horse. This entry marks my coming out of the Blogging Cave of Shame and admitting complete surrender. Knowing myself as well as I do, though I've gotten over the initial disappointment and erased the neon "Fail" stamped on my forehead, I still keep my lil' piece of comfort, my token of my true humanity, with me at all times. Even though I was judged for my flippant use of the f word, I will hold it near and dear to my heart and use it whenever I see fit, as I hold its' importance to be up there with God, Mother Teresa and Juan Valdez.
