Another Encounter with the Void

This is probably going to sound like a bit of a whinge, but if I can’t pour my heart out on my own blog, where could I do it? 

It’s more a statement that I need to get off my chest than anything else, really… Maybe it’s another testimony of my broken heart I want to post, like a message in a bottle. 

Here’s what happened:

When I finally managed to watch the British Academy Television Awards 2012, I was expecting some fine entertainment (and I wasn't disappointed!), but I wasn't expecting to cry when Monica Dolan made her speech.

What caught me by surprise was this:

'Twelve young women and girls, that we know of, were  lost in the Cromwell Street murders, and some of them were taken from  their families and some of them were in and out of care and I think the thing that affected me most working on this was not the  appalling violence actually; it was the fact that some of those women,  some of them, were never reported missing, and it seems that some of  them, no one noticed that they had gone for twenty years, and I would like to live in a world where everyone is missed.’

Of course, I haven’t been abducted and murdered, but I’ve discovered that I can become silent in a few of my Internet spots and, basically, disappear, and no one notices (nearly no one – I got one flare from a far-away friend, who did wonder what was going on [if you’re the one, and you’re reading this, you’re glomped again].).

On most groups, I’m not that active, so it’s not a surprise, but in the group I started, I was posting very, very, very, very, very regularly, and when a nasty bout of depression, a bit of Void caught me, I just couldn’t post.

Void and darkness left bit by bit, but I’m now coming back to a place where I can be MIA for two months, and I could have been decomposing on my linoleum, and I have the feeling that no one noticed.

I really feel as if whether I’m on this planet or not makes no difference, and it’s not the best of feelings. I’ve recently read things that explained the lurker phenomenon, but I really feel like a piece of furniture that’s forgotten against the backdrop – all the more since, in the past, I’d already explained that my health problems tend to take their toll (being half-paralyzed for years will do that to you) and I’d warned that a sudden disappearance might well be a sign that the Void was calling me (if, by any chance, someone is reading this and thinking “Pft! She’s just crying wolf to make herself interesting”, I’ll answer that my mantra in most of April was “I want to die, I want to die”). Yet, in spite of my earlier call for a bit of e-warmth, I got nearly nothing (just one message from the other side of the globe).

I see some good things happening; some people caring and being good.

And so, I end up wondering if there’s something wrong with me and if I’m invisible or something.

I know I’m not the only one having problems, but I can’t imagine that I’m dealing with hundreds and hundreds of lurkers, which is why I do feel like a piece of furniture. Since this is happening to one of my other literary incarnations, I tried a little experiment and took down all my works from the archives (no one noticed, which tells me that I could disappear for good and it’s the smell of decomp that’d inform neighbours of my fate – if they cared enough to mention it to the landlady!). 

I feel as if I’ve been dumped by the site I started. These readers haven’t realized yet that they’ve killed my muse, and I’m not going to write anything else for them (it's not to punish them; it's just that my inspiration for their plots dried up and died. My silver lining is that I’ll focus on my original works from now on).

This is what happened to me in that particular zone of the Internet, but when I met friends in town and basically sent an SOS, I was ignored. I came to the conclusion that it’s fine if I’m around to help them with something, but I’m not worth a quick hug (which is all I need).

The conclusion is that there’s nothing wrong with me, and some of the people I know and e-know are just not on my wave length. There’s no need to ask for a hug or even just a smiley in an e-mail, I’ll never get that. I could make it my sig line (“If I suddenly stop e-mailing for several days in a row, something’s wrong; please, wave, send the cavalry, beam Captain Kirk, or something…”), and the message would still not go through.

In fact, the one who’d send the cavalry is my brother. The handful of friends who’ve got the address of this blog would notice too, but for the rest of the planet, my fall would be quieter than the breaking of a twig in the heart of a huge forest.

I think I’ll try to exorcise a bit of Void with a new Sordid Fairy Tale on the topic.