Mama Said There'd Be Days Like This

I'm a distressed blogger tonight.

There are a lot of us out here. You know who you are. You're students, stay-at-home parents and office workers. You know how to use a computer -- many of you are certified computer gurus, twiddling with your blog templates, writing your own code, tracking the IP addresses of your readers. Some of you know just enough to get Blogger working, don't care about anything but typing your thoughts.

And a lot of those thoughts are unhappy. Marital problems are huge these days. There are husbands frankly admitting that they want to find some nookie on the side, wives who are at the ends of their ropes with unresponsive, uncommunicative husbands; students who are so bored with classes that they are blogging during lectures; receptionists, secretaries, IT personnel and various levels of administrator who are so disgusted by their jobs/paychecks that it seems all they do at the office is blog about how they'd rather not be at the office.

I am your brother tonight. My life hasn't changed, but something is different. This has nothing to do with the Superbowl and the imminent end of the football season. The Vikings got drunk after Thanksgiving dinner as usual, and they're just sobering up now, so I haven't been following football since then.

I have a sense of foreboding this evening, as if something bad is happening, but I am not in on it. Yet. I have dark confessions burning within me that must not escape. I am contemptible. I am wallowing in undefined self-pity. It's unworthy of me. My mind knows this, and is repulsed, but my heart doesn't care. It is heavy with longing and broken hope.

I have never shown my face but I can't hide from myself. I have gone too far, or have I moved at all? No one knows me, or have I revealed too much? I have nothing to say, but an urgent need to talk. I am your distressed blogger.

I'll be fine by the time the sun comes up.