shout outs.

Maybe there's something I've forgotten to clarify in my 1.5 years of regular blogging:

I became very isolated and lonely when I was married. As much as I naturally love to talk, most of my thoughts never reached my lips because my life had become something I had to hide from everyone.

The happiest and most glorious moment of my life was when I was driving away from my marriage. I humored so many thoughts of reconnecting with others. I imagined myself being Whitney's roommate. I imagined sitting for hours speaking with my mother. It felt like I was flying.

I called this blog socialexplosion because I'd been pent up and held back for so long that the inertia of my desire to socialize felt like a breaking dam or a bomb.

There are a few people in particular who withstood the power of my social force with love, patience, and strength:

The first is my mother. She received me with open arms and fulfilled all of the dreams I carried of reconnecting with her. I am late to school most mornings but it is not because I am dawdling. I am talking with her. It's a routine I just can't give up. I tell her all about my life as she's preparing my lunch and we always get a bit carried away. There's a lot of love in the mornings at our house.

The second is Whitney. Whitney guided me back into the world of singles with grace and confidence. I needed her and she knew it. I've never had a happier summer than the one I spent with Whitney.

The third is Mike Alger. I met Mike at midnight at an ihop for a Kohler's co-worker gathering that Whitney took me to. He said he was interested in film so I whipped out my foreign film knowledge. Mike doesn't even watch foreign films. But he listened and listened and somehow we exchanged numbers. He's been listening graciously ever since.

The last and certainly not least are my siblings. Although most of them don't live around here, their gestures of forgiveness and love have been some of the most tender. There's been Spanish help at midnight, long letters illustrated with cartoons, nail-painting, long phone calls, and g-chatting from the middle-east in a war zone about my latest dating news. My siblings fortify and lift me.