When a Blog Goes Silent

Sorry, but I just have to write this. It's tearing at me and I have to get it out. Don't worry, though. I will post something better later in the day (assuming I don't get pulled away).

A few days ago (it feels like it's been weeks) I went on a search of new blogs. I think I was searching for someone who's posts reminded me of myself. My approach was to walk out in the middle of the night, close my eyes, and shoot my little foam rubber arrows out until I heard a noise.

I found someone.

Their blog looked to have been inactive for at least two weeks. That didn't concern me. Some of the blogs I visit regularly skip days between posts. But this one had been active before going quiet.

I was about to bail out, my eyes still scanning their last post, when my attention was caught by a single sentence: "IN my life, I’m sad, disappointed, hurt.. whatever." I returned to the post (I had already clicked to return to my dashboard) and read it in its entirety. It made me nervous. There were six comments and I checked those out. All six people appeared to be good friends and were wishing Merry Christmas and promising future contact - some of it implied as face-to-face or with a telephone.

Still bothered, I went to the profile page where I found the blogger in question had posted 102 things about herself. I was going to bail again, but then I saw that our birthdays were only a day apart (and 19 years). I began to scan the list and was chilled to find I was matching on most of the answers to implied questions. So I copied the entire list to Excel and wrote my own answers to the same questions. I had a 62% match, which is a little misleading. My "negative" responses seemed to lack the intensity of the pain I felt from hers.

Suddenly, I felt an overwhelming desire to help/encourage this person. I get depressed (if you've read me at all this is no surprise, I'm sure), but this person seemed really depressed. I posted a comment and checked daily to see if there was a response.

None.

There was an Email contact and so I tried that.

Still nothing.

Now there is nothing more for me to do but continue to check daily in hopes that activity will suggest whatever the crisis was, it has either passed or become livable.

Why do I care? This isn't my daughter (although the consistency of matching responses almost suggests she could be). I don't even know who she really is. But now I'm left with this nagging sense of worry like what I get when Spouse is late coming home. Has there been an accident? A breakdown? When Spouse walks through the door with a smile, healthy and unharmed, I am relieved, annoyed and chagrined all at once. I'm hoping that's how this turns out. But I may never know. That's true, isn't it?

Why did I take that shot in the dark? I should have just stayed where I was, shouldn't I? What good have I accomplished? Now I'm worrying about someone who probably is just fine. How and why is it possible for me to do this?

I hate it when Blogs go silent.