I’ve been chasing grace....

....grace ain't so easily found.

This is my139th post on this blog. The number isn't itself significant in any way, except inasmuch as it is probably my last. I set out in February hoping to use writing this blog as a way to discover the means of becoming the pilot of my life, rather than a passenger buffetted by the eddies of those who do take charge. As I look back over the last ten or so months, I can only conclude that I have failed in that regard. To be sure, I have been pleased to find that, with the right job, I can enjoy work and some of the malaise lifted with that. But, overall, I am still an observer; still watching myself move through the world with a "studied indifference."

I am not sure what went wrong. As I look back, I can only count on one hand the posts that I have liked and took some degree of pride in. They were, not surprisingly, those posts that were laden with emotion, touching on a subject near to my heart. The rest? Self-indulgent crap. A means of posing and posturing for the crowd (such as it was). Posts on my daily life were meant to evince a sense that I have an interesting life. The Friday Random Ten became an exercise in showing off the breadth of my musical taste. If a lousy song came up in the rotation, I fast forwarded past it and didn't include it on the list. Even those discussions of the struggles with my wife's depression didn't seem intended as tools for working through the situation, but rather as a way to seek validation. I wasn't looking for help with what was between her ears, but rather looking for complements for what was between mine.

It was, in short, an exercise in ego. I suppose the paucity of my readership is, in no small part, due to this basic insincerity. While every word I wrote was true, precious little of it was authentic because it was presented under false pretenses. That a main protagonist in my writing was completely unaware of this blog also has weighed heavily on me. Thus, it is time to lower the curtain on this experiment.

For the handful of you who have come here with some degree of regularity, thank you for your kind words and, more importantly, your indulgence. I will continue to read your blogs because you are what I aspire to be: a person seizing their lives and living it. Even in your darkest, most painful moments, I admired you because you were genuine and passionate and fought for something better for yourself. That is a precious gift.

I leave you with my early prayer for 2009.