3 in 1 post: On blogging, introspection and a big secret.

A few things have been on my mind lately and seeing that none of my most recent posts have been particularly introspective, or even substantial really, I figured that it was high time to do something about it.

There hasn't really been a whole lot of excitement in the life of Faye lately. School is out, most of my friends are home, I work everyday, I have the room to myself, and I stay up late a lot. That pretty much sums it up.

Christmas is coming, but I have lost a good deal of holiday cheer. I think I am secretly afraid that if I get too excited over my favorite holiday that I will be disappointed. It's my first Christmas away from home and, well, it doesn't really feel like Christmas. It's not the weather - if anything, it feels more Christmassy because it actually is colder here than it is back home. It's just that I haven't done a whole lot of Christmassy things since the beginning of the month. That and I haven't been getting a whole lot of social interraction outside of work. Holidays aren't much fun without people. It's really my own fault for spending most of my time here in my room on my computer, I guess. Tomorrow I will go Caroling, finally, with my colleagues (but my throat is scratchy and I'm losing my voice! GRR!), there will be a Christmas party with them on Friday and then dinner with the Millers (only the sweetest couple missionaries ever) so that will be good. I suppose my version of keeping up the Christmas spirit has been completely immersing myself in snowflake cutting. It's kind of funny, in a way, how I've been carrying around pairs of scissors and paper in my pocket, passing snowflakes out wherever I go. Ah well. Christmas isn't going to be bad, I don't think I'll let it. I just need to get moving and do something with my sister and all the other homesick kids over here.
Read more/hide: On Christmas Cheer

Part of what motivated me to sit down and write this post was my sudden awarenes of my desire for this blog to be popular, or at least well-liked. Ever since I paused my blog reading and writing in the summer (this was my boyfriend replacement and I had a boyfriend then), things here slowed down, I stopped reading some blogs, they stopped reading mine... and I'm not sure it's ever been the same since.

It bothers me how I would like it to be.

Really, this blog is a place for me to be myself. It's exists so that I can stay up all night working on little crazy things like the javascript that creates a random picture to link to my blogger profile since I couldn't decide which one I liked better, that no one will ever notice. It's here so I can talk about how I feel and organize my thoughts. It's here so I can chart my growth and so I can learn more about myself. It comes in handy for keeping family and friends updated. I know there are many who stop by here and read everything I write because they want to know what is going on in my life. However, there are a few who stop by here randomly who go "This is AWESOME!" and stick around to read what I write (and always comment) religiously.

I wonder what is it that makes me wish my blog was as popular as some of the others I have seen. I wonder what it takes to get it like that. Do I have to improve my writing style? Do I need to change what I write about? Be funnier? Write more honest and heartfelt entries? Shorter ones, perhaps? Maybe, all it takes is having lots of friends. Reading lots of blogs and commenting on them so they are obligated to do likewise. A more vigorous publicity campaign perhaps? I already am a member of 4 blog rings. Doesn't do me much good. They all seem to read each others blogs and I am not doing what it takes to hop on to their community.

I wish there was a way to know exactly who reads my blog. There really is no way to accurately gauge it. I could base it on how many incoming links I have out there, but not everyone who blogs and reads mine knows how to add links (a matter that requires a little HTML), or even have a site to link me to. I could do the site count thing, where I keep track of how many hits per day/week/etc my page has gotten. Wouldn't be anywhere near informative because I check my own blog so often for comments. I could base it on how many comments I get, but as we can tell, not everyone who reads my blog comments, which is a shame. I'd rather a few people and a lot of comments than a large audience and few comments. To me, the popularity of a post is determined by the number of comments.

I've been meaning to be less hypocritical about commenting and had been trying to create a commenting "culture" by commenting on all my friend's blogs in hopes that they would do likewise, and replying to all comments. The truth is, not everyone has that much time to read/write comments, or have something to say in reply. And there are many lurkers out there. I don't comment in every blog I read. It's fair.

To be honest, there are many blogs that I read out of obligation - because I know how much it can mean to have an audience. There are many blogs I read because I really enjoy what they have to say and how they say it, or because I like reading about where our lives overlap from a different perspective. But there are those which I don't find particularly interesting. Or I have a difficult time appreciating the writing style. I still read them anyway, because I am so afraid of being one of those blogs.

Do you read my blog because I want you to, or because you really enjoy reading what I write? Why would I read my own blog?

There are some blogs that I read because I really care about the writer, whether or not I've met them in real life. You get to a point where you learn to like the person so much that you'll read everything they have to say, even if it's about them deciding which color their new bedroom should be, or how they stood in line at the bank for a really long time. Usually, it's a pleasant read anyway. I know there are people who read my blogs because they care about me. I want more of those kind of readers, however it is that they know me.

I guess this whole wanting my blog to be popular thing stems from me wanting approval. I wish that people would read my blog, really get to know me, and decide that they really like me and become a permanant part of my audience.

I feel somewhat under pressure to write about something deep. Some sort of personal struggle, something introspective. Those are the kind of posts I really appreciate in the future. The truth is, I'm not really facing any struggles lately. Besides the disappoinment in my lack of discipline and organization (which are too shameful to blog about anyway), there really isn't a whole lot going on i.e. not very much to cry about.

Certain events (like it being the end of the year, and talking to specific persons about my past, and reading old posts) have been causing me to look back alot. The link I posted about my old photoshoot in March was in the same week that my parents had announced that they were going to get a divorce. What hell I'd gone through - and I'm glad I wrote about it. I enjoy reading those posts today. They had substance. I was writing about important feelings, (although I did blog a lot about missing my ex-boyfriend. Great at the time, but really worthless and uninteresting to me now.) There just isn't a whole lot of angst in my life today - and I should be grateful. But aren't challenges and not-so-rosy times what inspires great writing, movies, music, poetry? What if things are mostly going fine? What do I write about? Pick a challenge? Like how I would like more people to read my blog? Nice, deep subject, Faye. Good one.

It's ok, I know I will have many trying times ahead of me. I'll enjoy this phase that I am in while I can. A phase to recharge, gain an education, be happy - my interphase between the large battles in life.

The song "I'm Only Happy When It Rains" by Garbage comes to mind.

This makes it sound like I like to be sad or something. I don't really. I love being happy. But I also love being happy when everything around me is going wrong - and being able to write about that. I just feel this lack of feeling within me right now. I hope it's not a bad sign - or the calm before the storm. I am just afraid that I will go through my entire life unmoved and unfeeling. Just going through the motions and not really enjoying the ride. I understand that with really extreme lows come really extreme highs.

Those lows force us to look within ourselves and to look for meaning in those events in our lives. How do I maintain a regular dose of introspection, pondering and an appreciation of life (which contributes to those highs) in absence of the lows?

Read more/hide: On Blogging and Popularity

There has been a little big something going on in my life lately, but I'm not sure how/if I should blog about it. I was reading some of my past entries written here while at BYU-Hawaii this time around. Pages and pages plagued by my infatuation for some member of the male species. Mark. Joel. Richie.

Every time I had a crush, I made a big deal about it. There would be an overload of posts, nearly to the point of obsession. It was more from excitement, really. But it could be kind of scary.

The point is, I noticed that I didn't do it this time, and I'm trying to figure out if it's a good thing or a bad thing so I can decide what I am going to do about that.

I've posted a few cryptic things for myself. Some of you may have noticed how I changed my blog title from "Faye's Boyfriend Rehab" to "Faye's Boyfriend Recruiter".

*pause*

I'm not sure why I am so reluctant to blog about this. Part of me is afraid of the negative attention I may get because of it. Perhaps another part is afraid that to make it public would be to accept it as a reality and that it will interfere with the course of things in my "reality" in this sphere. Or at least this part of the world.

I speak of it as if I bring bad news. Really, I'm just trying to suppress my real feelings: excitement- due mostly to twitterpation (not to be confused with constipation).

Yes, this involves a guy.

But not just any guy. This is someone I think could quite possibly be the one. I don't use that term loosely, so this is really something. I hope. I am trying to keep myself from exagerrating and creating hype over nothing (hence my reluctance to etch it into history in writing), but this is truly how I feel. And I feel vindicated in having such feelings because he thinks/feels the same about me.

The problem is that we have little justification to such a claim because, well, put quite simply: we've never met each other. Not in "real life" anyway. He is 5,950.12 miles away in New York. At least he was, before returning home for Christmas.

Basically, he found me through this very blog (hence the new title), and we began a correspondence through email (just over a month ago) which quickly turned to talking over AIM and Yahoo with my webcam, then, well, I gave him my digits and we started having conversations on the phone.

The second night we had talked on the phone, I went on a date with Nephi, only to find myself wondering if the said special someone would still be awake when I got home. I hope this doesn't get unhealthy.

I am unsure of how much or how little to tell you about him. He seems to like to maintain anonimity on his blog, so I don't want to ruin that here, but guess I can tell you a few specifics. He just completed his first semester of law school in New York. And yes, you can relax just a little: he is a member. He served his mission in Taiwan, which means he speaks Mandarin better than I do. He's traveled a great deal, lived in China, Taiwan (post mission) and in Europe. He loves poetry, if possible, even more than I do, he writes wonderfully well, is extremely intelligent, is extremely intimidating on paper but funny and says "like" and "yo" in person (not that I know what that's like). Bottom line: we get along great.

4 phone conversations and lots of flirting later, and we established the fact that we both really liked each other and we suddenly were talking about where we wanted our "relationship" to go. Leaps and bounds, I know. The conclusion of that phone conversation was that we were then dating. Whatever that meant.

You don't have to warn me: I know everything that could go wrong in this scenario. My first relationship was with someone I met over the internet who happened to be a non-member (and happens to share the same name with this guy). The worst mistake I'd ever made in my life.

It makes little to no sense to call this a relationship because Mark and I broke up when he had moved to Utah for school. I was unwilling to continue a relationship long-distance, without any confirmation of a future together. This isn't too different, only worse, possibly, because I can't say that I really know him. But understand: I feel like I do.

There is consolation in the fact that we know people who know each other. He is in the same ward as Corey Larsen who used to live here. He knows a family who is from here and was here visitng them last year, I think, and I know a whole bunch of people who know them. We're connected to each other in many ways, so I feel safer. I would have trusted him anyway, but I feel that there is more validation to his person because of it. Strange, huh?

I am not ready to jump into this head first because I don't trust myself. In fact, the day after we decided to start "dating", my head caught up with my heart and I had second thoughts. We talked about it a little and readjusted some parameters, I guess. Still a matter that needs to be discussed, or dealt with as kinks arise.

The point is, wonderful as this guy is to me right now, I am unsure and unwilling to gamble my entire future, or at least my hopes and dreams for my future on him - yet.

So where do we stand now? I'm not exactly sure. Quasi-boyfriend/girlfriends who talk to each other everyday and talk about plans for the future like we really intend on seeing them through, addessing each other like a couple would?

Am I off the market? Gee I don't even know. We don't want this to get unhealthy and cause me to miss out on living for real. Right now, there isn't a whole lot going on outside of my room - but when school starts, we will have to talk less. What then? We set up our own rules and since I still am in need of a real social life, I have decided that I am not shutting guys out completely. I will still go on dates (which means that I won't mind if he does too), and I will keep my eyes open for something like that here. I really think that nothing I see here will be better than what I have waiting for me in New York, but I open to being proven otherwise.

If we do end up changing our minds about each other, I know that feelings will be hurt, but that's why I'm tyring to put my heart on a leash. Pace myself. It's too early to decide on anything but possibly the chance of meeting up or living in the same area to see where it can go.

This is very much, I've decided, a "writing my missionary" situation. Lots of potential, but only to be tapped into in the future.

For now, I am making sure to keep this the positive thing it can be. Not to become too dependant. Taking advantage of the fact that he makes me want to be a better person. To do better in school. To Plan my academic future carefully. To increase spirituality and work on being temple-worthy. Even clean my room. If nothing comes of this, at least I was made a better person through him because he's reminded me of what I really want in life.

So, there you have it. The secret I have been witholding from the world. It's a wonderful thing really, and I know that many of you will worry, but I hope that you will also be happy for my good fortune in having made a wonderful new friend.
Read more/hide: On my big secret

More posts on the development of this new-found interest to follow. Just glad to have been able to finally talk about it tonight.

For now, sleep beckons, luring me with the thought of dreamland - a place where distance can extinguished by just a little imagination.