Let's Get it Started...

Well.... here we go. I'm starting one of these blogs... just a year or two ago I would have looked at you with my eyebrows knit together if you asked me if I had a blog. "A what?" But well, this technology stuff is amazing. I can sit here and write my thoughts out online for complete strangers- as well as friends and family- to read and analyze. How cool. How therapeutic. A couple weeks ago, a new friend, Shereen, was telling us on one of our online groups about her own blog and encouraged me to start one of my own. I took a look at hers- wow, she is one profound woman, that's for sure! I thought, oh... I have nothing THAT deep to talk about. (Her entry that I had read that day was about why people like to watch horror movies- which reminded me of a long-ago conversation with my sister, Celeste and her husband, Jay, who "made" me watch Scream! with them about 8 years ago, at a time when I was very sensitized to film... anyway that's a story for another day, right?) I just finished reading a novel that I highly recommend to anyone (as long as you don't mind the occasional profanity and sexual reference). It's by Wally Lamb, titled, "I Know This Much is True." It was one of Oprah's Book Club books! So, there ya go, has to be good, right? THAT book, which I finished reading yesterday, is what is REALLY making me start to write down my life and what better way than doing it here online, not knowing who is reading, maybe it's my family who will turn around and call me on what I say- "No, Ruthie, I beg to differ but I remember it differently" (oh, if only our family was that polite when we disagreed!) I don't know how much of my experiences and thoughts I'll actually share. I guess as I get older, and make more mistakes, and have more of a reputation to live up to (even if it's only just in my own mind)... I get more private. I'm actually a very sensitive person (anyone who knows me well would say that) and I'm very sensitive to other people's judgements of me in particular. But, at the same time, I am stepping out of my comfort zone to write down what's on my mind because I want to search for the truths about my life. And I want to force myself to examine my own biases and beliefs, in front of a real or imagined audience. Maybe that is what my whole life over the last 15 years has been. My own struggle to find the truth and to see the world, myself included, with merciful and loving eyes. Anyway- come along with me, reader :-) Take my hand and together we'll see the humor and drama that makes up the life of this simple housewife named Ruthie, of Maadi.