Self-absorption for all

Today I am typing my 200^th blog. It’s hard to believe that I’ve been at it so long. When I started I didn’t even think about how long I might do it. Back then, my main concern was how I’d actually set it up and I don’t think I could have done that without the help of my lovely friend, who is a whiz at these things. Once that was achieved, all I had to do was write it. I was convinced that I had endless things to say and just hoped that someone somewhere would actually want to read them. I decided to keep the posts to 500 words or thereabouts so as not to try the reader’s patience too much. I’m still very grateful that anyone reads my blog at all and am delighted when people comment.

Occasionally I sit down at my desk and think “What on earth will I write about today?”, but more often something has struck me in the week and I know that‘s what my blog will be about. I try to post weekly, but can’t face it in times of stress and I don’t write when I’m away on holiday – it just takes too long and I have so much else to do. I call them holidays, but my trips are usually so exhausting that I need to come home for a rest.

Because I’ve now been writing my blog for so long, it’s starting to look a bit like a diary, although it’s thankfully short on the details of my daily life. I’m no good with diaries. I start out full of good intentions, but always abandon them after a few weeks. I even started trying to keep one in French, but that was even less successful. I wish I’d kept these diary fragments, especially the ones from my childhood and youth. I can remember finding them months or years later and being so embarrassed that I ripped them up. But I regret that now because I’m sure I’d find them fascinating and hilarious.

It was a column in yesterday’s i newspaper that started me thinking about all this.  The writer, Tom Nicholson, kept a diary when he was 16 and its entries now cause him excruciating embarrassment. But he treasures it and I can see why. It’s so wonderfully self-absorbed and his quotes made me laugh out loud. He writes: “On 5 November, president-elect Obama told 240,000 people in Chicago: “While we breathe, we hope, and where we are met with cynicism…we will respond with that timeless creed that sums up the spirit of a people: yes, we can.” I told my diary: “I think I need to go to more parties.”

It made me wonder guiltily whether world events had ever crept into my weekly ramblings and so I looked back a few years. Lockdown certainly features, but if I’m honest I was as self-absorbed as any 16-year-old. Am I talking about the suffering caused by the pandemic? No, I am discussing the dusty bottles of alcohol lurking at the back of the pantry and the joys of doing tai chi in the garden. I can only defend myself by saying that I think the world can be a dark place and I try to keep my posts light. Some might even say silly. It could be worse: at least I don’t try to write then in French.