Lying to get to the truth

Some of you have asked: “Why am I writing this blog?” Why invite my best friends to read my journal? Why post it on a public web page? These questions bend my mind.

The short answer is: I’m blogging for the sake of personal growth and relational growth among “my fellow men”.

When I TALK with you, man friends, I feel growth. Murky things get a bit clearer. My soul strengthens and I feel closer to God. It’s a two-way street…I see YOUR faces light up when we’re together. I want more of this good stuff.

When I hang out with you guys, growth springs from developing intimacy. Funny thing about intimacy – it’s not a man thing – supposedly – but I like it. The key to intimacy seems to be honesty, openness, and real sharing of our emotions. That’s hard to do. I’ve experienced this man-to-man closeness when together in person – camping, out for lunch, our church renewal group. Yet there are only so many times each week we can get together. I resist picking up the phone and talking. And when I’m on the phone with you, I can’t get myself to dive below the surface. Perhaps blogging, can provide more? I don’t know…but here I am trying.

Something I have shared with some of you – I’ve been struggling with depression. I lost my job. Jean and I are at the brink of divorce. She’s moved out. We came within a hair’s breadth of deciding to sell our house. At times I get overwhelmed by sadness or feeling hopeless. I need to feel alive. I need to move forward. This blog project is a way to challenge myself and feel alive. You, my friends, can help.

My other joyful challenge is swimming. Today I competed in a 5K open water swim. It was brilliant! I swam hard and steady for more than an hour across the basin of the lake and back. There was a guy close on my tail through most of the race who I was DETERMINED would not overtake me. The last 30 minutes I looked over my shoulder every few minutes to spot him. The pressure of seeing him on my tail motivated me to keep up my effort and my pace. I finished twenty seconds ahead of him. Yipee!

A worthy challenge is tough and tense. Blogging passes that test because I am DEEPLY scared to be put this stuff out there…and I feel compelled to move ahead anyway. The day I posted the first entries I deeply dreaded your feedback. The feeling of impending doom was so great that I could barely move my arms when I swam that day!

The risks in this blog are real – and not just the ego exposure if my writing sucks. I risk offending and alienating you. I offended my brother David, and got an earful about how he was upset by how I characterized what happened between us as kids. I risk offending Jean, Hope, and Dodie when I write about my relationships with them. While they aren’t the target audience for this blog, they’ll probably read it from time to time. That’s a big reason I’m fictionalizing the names – to protect them, as well as to keep this separate from my work life.

I love a creative challenge – and I see this project that way. I’m intrigued by the challenge to openly express intimate feelings and thoughts, honestly, while avoiding hurting people I care about, using the public Internet. I’m going to try it for a few months, challenging myself to write once or twice each week, and see where it goes.

Lying to get to the truth? I’m lying about the real names of my family and my friends, so I can get at the truth about who I am, and who we are together. I don’t know if fictionalizing the names is necessary, but it seems prudent. As to what I’m writing about, I welcome you to challenge me. Let me know if you don’t see me facing the truth of who I am as a man and who we are as friends. I might be wrong, but I think that by putting our dialog out on the public internet we’ll be able to invite others into a discussion, expanding the circle, and increasing the benefits.

Let me know what you think.