Sometimes a Sweater is Just a Sweater.

So I bought an ugly sweater yesterday. Was there any hidden meaning to this? Possibly. It could be about how I could be using shopping to get over depression. It could be about how vain I am to think that I could take something possibly tacky and make it cute. It could be about how the sweater remains me of something from my past—a piece of art—that ties me back into a sweeter time.

Or maybe it means nothing more than I am just doing things to do them-no meaning, no rhyme, no reason. That everything has been all twisted up as of late and that they won't be getting better any time sooner. But that's too dark and twisty—even for me.

Though I wouldn't blame you if you thought that way. That with my current series of blogs, my conversations, my state of mind it would be amiss for me to think that you couldn't mistake me for being a bit depressed or off or whatever word you choose to fill in with. But I'm also sure it's not that simple.

I spent my day today looking at bridal gowns with friends. I had coffee and joked and snuck photos and texted. I made dinner conversation, read Thomas Guides, e-mailed jobs and just pushed through my day. If you spent time with me you might have felt a little melancholy but not too over the top. It's just here where my words live that you feel this about me.

Its funny how much weight that can be placed on a blog. That somehow a blog becomes a permenate record of how you feel. That every emotion, observation and statement placed down can be perceived as the final word. That if the wrong person reads it, or it is put up at the wrong time or with the wrong viewpoint it can suddenly be seen as cannon for how you view the world.

I've never bought into that idea. If I believed everything written by the people I read I would think they were shallow or crazy or silly or mean or desperate or insensitive or just plain boring. That people really think in lists or surveys—that you tube is a secret window into a psyche or that itunes can really be the key to a personality.

Instead I view a blog as a small window into a moment of time, a stream of thought. And that being allowed to share in that insight—however casual or small or disjointed—is something to be grateful for. That even when it is something I don't agree with or understand or want to hear; by my choosing to go and read it I make a contract with the other parties involved to be respectful.

And not only that, but that it is not something to hold against someone, that it's not that they are writing things as a way to hurt people or been aggressive or to be judge. That they are just sharing something simple that could be simply different the next day. That how they feel when they are alone with their words doesn't mean this is how they feel as they make their way through the day to day of living. That reading too much into spare moments on-line or stream of thought doesn't really accomplish much at all.

So if I write about buying an ugly sweater it doesn't mean anything more than if I write about being disappointed in a person. That if I talk about Sargent Beverly doesn't mean I'm into crack whores or that a review of how I hated 'Little Women' doesn't mean I'm beating down your favorite book. It's just sharing an insight—a thought from a random day or place or of a person or a time.


Sometimes a sweater is just a sweater. And tomorrow it might not even be an ugly sweater.