I finally overcome my reticence to become public on the internet and I lose use of my computer. I have wanted to post on this blog for a few years. But I hesitated. Recently I took my fears and decided to face them and start this process.
Some of this fear started when I got an unhinged phone call from a stranger. It was before 7am in 2020. I let the answering machine take it. But I heard a woman’s shrill voice screaming across the condo. I stumbled to hear and couldn’t believe the abusive language. It was a stranger’s voice. It disturbed me that someone I didn’t know would attack me out of the blue. I had forgotten that I wrote a letter to the editor of our local newspaper. Local government was refusing to take a stand. The local big box stores made the decision to have customers wear a mask while shopping. The letter merely commended the business community for making public safety a priority. Yet this woman thought she had the right to track down my phone number and to threaten me with harm. What she did do was make me wary to write another letter to the editor. It made me want to hide. So I did.
The irony that hits me today is that I finally make the decision to hit the publish button on the blog and the assault on free speech rears its ugly head again. There has also been a comedy of errors on how I access this blog. I had to upgrade to a new computer with Windows 11. Running Into a lack of confidence that I would be able to transfer all my old files to the new computer. I enlisted the help of my twenty-something nephew. It took longer than expected and it was harder than I thought for me to give up my old trusted computer. It also was one of the last connections to my husband, gone 8 years this month. My brain knew that that I already have these files on both external drives and on the new computer. But I couldn’t help myself. I had to check and double check.
Today, I have to put this behind me. Now that the personal attacks on self-expression has been activated again in our society, I decide that I must post my words. I must expose myself, come what may. I must try to leave the fear that has held me in its grasp in the past. Yet I know that I must take the fear with me on this journey and make it spur me on. As Catherine of Sienna said, “Nothing great is ever achieved without enduring much.” Hopefully, I can make the transition to embody one of my favorite American writers, Ralph Waldo Emerson’s ” Nothing is ever achieved without enthusiasm.” (meaning with passion and eagerness or so AI says!)
thoughts keeping me awake 