Welcome to Second Life

Reader, for the past four years I've been happily blogging over at Professional Critic about celebrity gossip, music, feminism, television, political scandals, social injustice, baby animals and a smattering of porn. I've generally steered clear of the personal since so much of the interwebs is already, GAH! TOO MUCH INFORMATION, SHHH, SHUSH please don't tell me that.

As you can guess, I feel somewhat scarred by bloggerly oversharing and have crafted Professional Critic accordingly. Despite my intention to keep private events just that, life has gone on with its bad self; the subsequent twists, turns and tumbles off the edges of sheer cliffs have made me realize there are some personal events I do want to write about but Professional Critic just didn't feel like the right place to do this. Hence, the creation of this here blog, Second Life.

In a nutshell, here's why: since 2006 I've lost a great deal of my family. Some losses were in what one might consider to be a "natural" timeline, others not quite and others not even remotely. Some were rather sudden, others are continually unfolding in a way that is at once agonizingly prolonged and shockingly fast.

It has become increasingly difficult to make sense of these losses. Countless times I've found myself saying over and over, to no one in particular, "Really?" like an episode of Saturday Night Live Weekend Update with Amy Poehler and Seth Meyers on repeat. At some point it started to click, that yes, REALLY.

And then I was all better!
The End.

I feel compelled to interject these moments of levity to counter balance the heaviness of this. Also, I must acknowledge humor as a Heavy-Duty Coping Skill Whose Power Cannot Be Underestimated. I'll be revisiting this theme often in Second Life.

Anyway, there's no way to express what I'm about to say without sounding melodramatic yet I mean this in the most matter-of-fact way: I have no idea why I'm waking up everyday, but I am. I have no idea why I didn't evaporate into a puff of dust, but I didn't.

So, with the question of really? more or less settled and my undeniable living, breathing existence, in Second Life I grapple with the next kind of big question: and, now what?