Connections, connections, connections

I love my Internet mom friends. I love them to the moon and back because I can post shit like this in one of our online groups:

Sometimes I want to stab my husband for completely irrational reasons, like he hung his dress shirts up facing the wrong way. Feel free to unfriend the crazy girl. o_O

And I'm met with stories so similar that I feel a little bit emotional over the connection I have with these other crazy chicks. *wipes eyes* It was my allergies. *sniff*

When my parents first got the Internet, I would greatly anticipate evenings after my homework was done when I could hear that squealing high pitched sound followed by a solid connection and the persistent blinking computer icon in the computer taskbar showing I was finally connected to the world outside of Lyndonville. It was scary standing there on the precipice of the technological revolution that was dial-up, particularly in a small town. It was scarier still that I was introducing myself to new people every day and was totally addicted to chatrooms and AIM by the time I left for college.

I'm sure all of us in my age group can recall the whole "a/s/l" and "What's your screen name?" phases of our lives. They were ... confusing. But for some, it was allowing us to find people whom we otherwise would never have met. I met some of my best friends online because of a common love for a single musician and was totally blown away when I realized last fall we've been friends for 10 years now and our lives are completely different than when we virtually met - I'm married and have kids, Christian is teaching in Korea, Kris and Xander are slowly going to achieve world domination through graduate studies and PhD programs, and Ryan is like the world's most amazing masseuse (I'm sure, though haven't had the pleasure of one of those massages).

Don't get ahead of me; this isn't going to turn into a piece on Internet safety, though I have enough experience meeting strangers from the web that I could definitely write a well informed article on the matter.

No, really, this one is purely about connecting, on some level, with others in my situation.

The situation used to be angst, but like the person I used to be and who I am now, that has changed. I'm talking about the stay at home mom situation. The main caregiver situation. The "maid/cook" situation. Let me clarify, though, we are not talking about The Situation or The Situation Room.

There are very few places I could vent my frustrations about the lack of effort some in my house put into taking care of laundry or picking up toys or washing dishes, and if it weren't for my "groups" it would all end up here. And no one wants that. Especially me. Because it's mundane and no one gives a shit other than moms for the most part. We're kind of nuts like that.

The reason I'm giving you this glimpse is because life is nothing but a series of connections - missed, incomplete, broken, sometimes filled with static, others a model of perfection - and we tend to find the ones we need in some of the most unusual places, like the Internet.

When I was in college those connections may have been about hooking up, what I was working on for some paper for a class I didn't give a shit about, finding a lost pair of mittens or finding someone to go to dinner with because I really hated eating alone; those connections for us older people are now things like online book groups, a group of moms for each age of child we have, a group to help motivate our exercise routine. And I use the term "older" loosely because I'm only 32, but all these young kids with the Internet on their phones when I was still using a flip phone with nothing but text and talk make me feel ancient.

As silly as it is, I feel extremely fortunate I can connect with others about something as ridiculous as the Boy hanging his work shirts wrong. They weren't just hung facing the wrong way ... they weren't put on the rod in our closet with his other dress shirts. I'm kind of crazy about grouping things together. You should see the pantry cupboards. It's those types of neuroses I can chalk up to "normal behavior" because my friends have them, too.

So much of what brings us together is based on stress, which is why these connections are important. It makes it nearly impossible for me to truly want to stab my husband when my friends are like "I have nine clothes hampers because ... clothes. TOO MANY CLOTHES." And then we can vent all those frustrations and feel better and it's virtually glorious. Like the Internet Gods shine their love down on us because we're the lost puppies of the world and this way we can find one another - that kind of glorious. That's how I know I'm in good company. These are the people 10 years ago I would have been IMing about going to dinner because I was desperate for Belgian waffle night in the dining hall.

Sometimes these connections show us our weaknesses as people - because we're all weak in some way - but all the same they can prove just how strong we can be. I'm in that terrifying spot in my life where my career in journalism is basically gone - more because I want it to not be my main focus than anything else - and I'm attempting new, creative endeavors. I'm working on a book project with a friend, which is new and exciting where I am given the chance to flex my creative muscles ... something that hasn't been worked and toned in a very long time.

And I've officially started what I hope/pray won't be a fiery shitstorm of a debut novel. Of sorts. I'm so scared I don't even know if I should call it a book. Or a story. Or ideas on paper. Literally scared out of my fucking mind. Nearly 6,000 words in you'd think I'd stop being worried that I completely suck as a writer and just let other people form their opinions.

I've been blessed, though, because out of all these connections and talks about OCD organizing my closet, I've found a writing buddy - someone I can bounce my creative, less neurotic ideas off of and get the thoughts and criticism I need because I'm not going to get that from my husband. For starters he totally lacks a vagina, so a creative romance piece that just might end up tearing your heart out would have no effect on him. He'd tell me I forgot a comma and I'd threaten to stab him. That's my Boy. Where my creativity is concerned, though, I've needed that proverbial friend to go to the dining hall with and it's kind of nice to have found someone with the same goal who can understand the frustration of building one character who needs to come off as a total bastard you want to castrate and developing another who deserves the best first chance at love in the history of first chances.

And to find that connection all I had to do was get knocked up and wait like four years for a random conversation about steamy novels, because sometimes the best things in life are worth waiting for.

God bless Bill Gates and this Internet thing, for without you I would have less stress, fewer awesome friends and way too much time to accomplish housework!

[So, I'm just going to end this post here since I've been writing it since yesterday and it pretty much makes no sense to anyone but me and maybe one or two other totally neurotic ladies. Goodnight!]