I’m Not Dead Yet

Did you miss me? Admit it. You did. You missed me something BAD. You were hitting your browser’s refresh button every ten minutes, or sitting by your RSS reader like a lovesick school girl thinking, “Surely my more-than-daily fix is hiding somewhere in the cracks and crevices of the internets?” And so I was. (Although, thinking about what one might find in the “…cracks and crevices of the internets…” isn’t a very pleasant thought at all, so just forget that I said it because the implications scare me). 

My good friend Hope came to SC for an impromptu visit from Minneapolis. Sub-48 hour surprise visits are always a bit hectic, intense, lacking appropriate amounts of sleep, and quite fun. We went hiking yesterday (in the 100º heat) to a very awesome waterfall in Oconee State Park called Yellowbranch Falls. Short hike (relatively speaking), magical payoff; the place is beautiful. Well worth dealing with the ridiculous southern heat of late. (It’s actually 82º IN MY HOUSE right now, with the AC cranked. Curses on poorly insulated houses). All that to say, i’m still here; and it makes me happy to know that you missed me.

But that did get me thinking, as I am prone to do. Hypothetically-speaking, suppose there was a blog you read everyday. You don’t actually know this person, but you begin to feel like you do by reading the comings and goings of their life over a period of days, months, years, etc. How they live life, who their friends are, what they spend their time doing… you get the whole of the picture of life the writer paints in words. You also begin to know their schedule and know when they’ll post everyday. And then… nothing. Nothing for days. Maybe a week goes by. What would you think? That they died? That they just decided to become a technology-shunning journeyman sherpa in Nepal without so much as a clever splashpage or warning or “Dear Faithful Readers” post? 

Wouldn’t that be odd? Would you feel sad? There are few blogs I read that I think i’m actually emotionally invested in the writer enough to care if they disappeared. There are even one or two that I would probably send out a search party for. But seriously, it’s a strange relational dynamic to be talking about missing people you’ve never met.