M.Y.O.B.

I have a love-hate relationship with blogs.

On the one hand, I spend a lot of time reading blogs. Way too much time. I've tried to cut back, but it's hard to break the habit. Reading blogs is kind of like peeking into people's medicine cabinets, isn't it? And I always want to peek in medicine cabinets. I used to always do it, too, but at some point I forced myself to stop - I felt too guilty. Luckily, after I stopped snooping in medicine cabinets, the blog was invented, and I had a new outlet for my voyeuristic tendencies.

Of course, some blogs are like those medicine cabinets that only contain a bottle of Advil, a razor, and a toothbrush. "Come on! Where are the goods?" I would always think. Even a box of Q-Tips could pique my interest a little bit - what exactly do people use them for, anyway? Everyone knows it's dangerous to clean your ears with them, right? So what are they in the bathroom for? Are they being used in some other orifice? Could there possibly be something untoward going on with those Q-Tips? Something, you know - icky? Or are they just there for fixing nail-polish smudges and cleaning out keyboards (my personal uses for them)? Maybe this is just my issue, though. Maybe I'm the only one who finds Q-Tips just a tiny bit suspect.

Anyhow, sometimes you open the cabinet and it's all right there - the condoms, the Prozac, the hemorrhoid cream, the messy lipstick tubes jammed every which way, the entire shelf of expired prescription painkillers. Some blogs are like that, too. Not too many, but some. Most blogs are like the medicine cabinet that appears perfectly ordinary - neat and orderly, with toothpaste and toothbrush and tampons and floss and just a few lipsticks neatly lined up - but then you spy a tiny prescription bottle in the corner, and it's anti-psychotic medication. Score! So maybe that's why I read blogs - I like to poke around and see what sort of intrigue is on display.

The problem, lately, is this: I'm having a blog-induced identity crisis. I read a blog by a crafty mama who lives on the coast of Maine with her three gorgeous children and her strapping, furniture-building, guitar-playing husband, and I think, "Wow. Look at her. She sews and knits and bakes and homeschools her kids and she just had her first book published, with another one on the way. She's got another baby on the way too, and she still looks beautiful, and her house looks like a Real Simple layout, and she updates her blog almost every day and gets hundreds of comments on every post, and meanwhile she's packing her (handmade) beach bag with cloth napkins (that she embroidered herself) because she and her adorable family are going to have a picnic on the beach with freshly baked bread and pie made with rhubarb she grew herself, and WOW I AM SUCH A LOSER! I want to write a book and live on the beach and have babies and be perfect like her!

This is actually followed by me cooking up the idea that Tom could land a plum faculty position at the Savannah College of Art and Design (they have a comics program, so this is, in my warped mind, actually within the realm of possibility), and we could live on one of those islands just outside Savannah, where I would write novels and have babies and grow things and make things and never lose my temper with my children again, because I am just so fucking happy and fulfilled. Never mind that we've just gotten settled in Brooklyn, and the other day I said I loved it here so much that I wanted to live in this very same apartment for the rest of my life and be buried at Greenwood Cemetery, which we can see from our window. Never mind that I don't actually like nature and gardening. Never mind that my husband is about to turn fifty and we really don't need to have any more babies. And never mind that I won't let my girls go more than knee-deep in the waves at Coney Island because I'm petrified that the ocean will sweep them away.

So I talk myself down from that fantasy and then stumble on another "newcomer to NYC" blog - hey, just like me! Except this person is fresh out of college and doesn't have children who depend on her to provide food, shelter, and vast amounts of love and attention. That's probably the way to go, huh? Move to New York when you're young and don't have so much to lose - don't move here when you're 32 and you have little kids and you don't even really know what job you want to do! But wait, I do know - I want to be a writer! Yeah sure - just like everyone else in New York. Great plan. Is anyone out there not writing a novel? Shit.

And then I find another transplant-to-NYC blog; this one written by someone who moved here because she was offered an amazing, high-profile job, which really must pay quite a lot, but still she can't find a decent apartment and still she's struggling with money. Oh my God - how did we end up in this great apartment, when we moved here without jobs at all? It must have been a mistake! The jig is surely going to be up soon! What in God's name were we thinking? Who do we think we are? Panic is setting in. Surf away!

You get the idea. Blogs, as much as I love to read them, are bad for my mental health.

Let's take stock:

I have a kind, talented husband who loves me very much, and puts up with all my crap. Sometimes the sound of him chewing his food makes me want to scream, but that isn't his fault. I love him. We're best friends. Our marriage is good. We have two funny, smart, healthy children who make me so happy that at least once a day, I feel like my heart is going to burst right out of my chest. Sometimes they behave so horribly that I have to fight the urge to run away from home, but I think that's to be expected. They give me more love than I've ever had in my life. I'm showered with kisses and hugs every single day. I know how lucky I am.

And we're here. We made it to New York, just like we dreamed. We have a great apartment. We've made wonderful friends. Everything is falling into place - not overnight, but bit-by-bit. We've jumped a bunch of hurdles already - we're damn well going to jump them all. I'm living my life, not someone else's. And that is enough. It's more than enough - it's fabulous.