This is off topic, sorry folks.

Kevin,

You know... some days... that cookie is just too damn heavy to carry. A millstone. Some of my "fans" search up my posts to make mischief, and frankly I feel one of those times coming on. The e-mail mischief is already running, and the flames usually follow. And then I may as well be invisible, obscured under the efforts people make to "defend" as others "attack." And it has nothing to do, really, with me.

And sometimes people will not listen to what I say just because it is me saying it and they have a skewed view. Mostly I sign the posts when I go coookieless, though I don't always enter a name in the who-from field. So my name being there in the post list doesn't get someone's blood boiling before even seeing what I may have said. And one thing I noticed awhile back is that there are a lot of people at the Mudcat who never realize that every one of us is growing and changing and learning and re-evaluating every day. I could post that I have decided to give up Christ and become a satanist, and people would still call me that sanctimonious proselytizing bitch Praise!

To "come back" to Mudcat I had to reclaim my voice, and it was hard. I drowned for awhile in opinions; I could hardly turn around some days. I came back very quiet, very bland, very timid. But I kept working on what was making that happen in me. Now, I post as frankly with the cookie as without. But the cookie price is not a cost I can always pay; some days I just am not up to it.

But see, I think if what I have to say is worth anything at all, it doesn't matter who is saying it, or if people know who did... it's the thoughts that count, if they are worth anything at all. I finally learned how to be, here. How to BE HERE. And that is, however I feel like being from one moment to the next. These occasional breaks from the cookies are a real challenge to discipline-- to think and write without leaning on or defending against the stereotypes.. it's a new form of participating, for me. If anyone has a problem with the motives or the means... it's too bad. I am the same Susan, regardless. Just a human bean trying to sprout, like everyone else.

And I am not hiding. I speak about it openly just like this post. I am just not waving flags anymore except when the subject matter warrants it. Because I learned that people will thrust those flags into my hands whether they are mine or not, whether they are flags I would even recognize.

Some people put these sorts of thoughts into PMs. I think PMs are sometimes a crutch. I'm just as happy to have it all in the open, visible.

Thanks for listening, Kevin. You have been a good friend.

~Susan