The awkward (and often painful) sound of silence

It's been nearly two weeks since I wrote anything in this blog. First let me apologise for the long-ish pause. No it's not because I have nothing left to say. (like that would ever happen :? ) I have some wonderful posts planned. There's a 3-4 part series on "Jesus - What the?' examining the life and ministry of Jesus and discussing the idea that perhaps the modern church is off target with it's target and even a section on Paul called 'A-Paul-ed'. (well it sounded interesting to me... yawn..Zzzz) But I digress...

There are a number of things I didn't quite anticipate when starting this blog thing.

First off it's really draining baring your soul... even if no-one reads your blog it can be a very painful experience just putting it down in words. Sometimes I need time to recover and in this case my depression has been at all time highs (or is that lows) in the past couple of weeks. Hence some of the 'silence'.

Secondly (and how stupid am I) I didn't anticipate my responses to feedback. This has come in from friends, family, people I have never met and people I'm getting to know in cyberspace. There's been encouragement, affirmation, criticism, mild debate etc. which is all good and I expected (and encourage) this.

The one response though that I didn't expect and the one that has been tearing me apart has been that of silence. (hence the 'painful' part of the title) Some people I had hoped would read the things I was writing and perhaps for the first time acknowledge and understand the turmoil that is so often my life have chosen to either 'not read' or worse still 'not comment'. Avoidance and silence can really hurt some times. The result on my fragile emotional state has been quite crushing.

Finally, I wasn't quite ready for the questions it would raise within myself. Being honest with yourself, writing stuff down and wondering where all this might lead can be very confronting. I am such a work in progress. At times this scares me senseless and I want to run away and pretend my GID doesn't exist anymore (which sadly doesn't work).

Anyway, the point of this was really just to point out that I have really appreciated those that have followed my story to date, I have appreciated the feedback and I ask you be patient as I work out what should come next and find the energy, courage and mental health to write it.

I remember someone old once said to me: "That lies will lock you up with truth the only key."
But I was comfortable and warm inside my shell, and couldn't see this place would soon become my hell
So is it better to tell and hurt or lie to save their face

(Missy Higgins - The Special Two)

Talk soon ... thanks for listening

Scott :)