What Happened to Your Blog or In Search of Home

I took a break from blogging. I was gone for four days. It all started when I went to the Central States Communication Association convention in Milwaukee. I didn't blog there because I felt that blogging would keep me from actually experiencing what was going on around me.

Ever since my mom died I've struggled with a few things--the obvious ones are fear of death, fear of anything ending, also fear of missing out. A not-so-obvious struggle has stemmed from the last of these three: I struggle with the desire and ability to not document the world around me. I'm petrified that if I blink, I will miss out on something. Some person, some picture, a song, a moment with friends, a time and a place to explore the world on a different level. And worse than any of these fears is the fear that I won't remember the thing I haven't missed out on. Every once in a while I find myself in a "documentation craze" where I realize that I'm spending more time attempting to remember events than actually living them.

I think that's probably what happened while I was at the convention. I didn't want to miss out on something in a misguided attempt to document it.

Iowa State scholars presenting scholarly things.

You see, the conference was more than just a conference to me. I realized during the first presentation I attended--a technology panel of my Iowa State people--that the convention's theme of "Home" was apropos. In no small way, I was traveling to a foreign city so I could reunite with my first professional family; with my professional, academic "home makers".

And so we attended sessions and listened to presentations and networked, we fell off our diets and ordered room service and closed down the hotel bar, we reunited and supported and fertilized friendships in preparation for yet another drought. And it was wonderful.

...

But at the same time my sudden absence from the one writing project to save me from my depression / anger / fear has to be larger than wanting to fully live a weekend at an academic conference. It is also about a larger search for home.

I decided to undertake this blog project, to write daily about a search for a new perspective, to consciously put my work out "there" on a different level because I don't feel like I have a true home.

Academia, as much as I love it, isn't incredibly welcoming at the moment and, in some ways because of this, I don't feel truly rooted or grounded in Rockford. Adjuncting is the academic equivalent of itinerant labor. Its debatable, for example, how smart it is to put down roots when you are applying for jobs on both coasts and everywhere in-between.

And it must be said that this blog probably represents yet another project in a string of documentation crazes. An attempt to find an emotional footing in life by documenting, cataloging and storing every moment.

And so today I'm grateful for the friends who meet me at conferences and for the friends who remind me to get back to it when the conference is over. Life keeps plodding on.