Lost and Found

Yesterday I had a near disaster with my Blog. I was working on my template, installing some new stuff, and somehow I hit something -- I don't know what -- and it appeared that I'd utterly lost everything except my "CURRENTLY READING" section. The feeling of panic I had was overwhelmingly disproportionate to what had happened. I'm writing this post and you're reading this post, so it is obvious that I found what I had lost and all is well.
. . . .
But it isn't. Not quite.
. . . .
Since Saturday I've been feeling emotionally fragile, and sort of lost, due to an experience that afternoon and evening. Which would be a topic for another post, if I feel brave enough at some point. So I suppose the perceived loss of the Blog was somehow a metaphor for losing my self.
. . . .
Trying to unpack this whole situation: The Blog has become awfully important to me. People always used to tell me I should "write." I took that to mean "write for money," which didn't interest me at all. To some people, there's something shameful about that. (I don't sell my quilts either, but I digress.) For me, receiving money for something that brings me joy would, I'm afraid, take all of the pleasure out of it. So I'm blogging; therefore, I'm "writing" in a way that satisfies me.
. . . .
I've never been a diary keeper (mainly because as a child and teen my mother used to read mine, confront me with the contents, and sometimes write it it herself! ). As an adult learner, I enjoyed journaling for classes when it was a requirement, but once the class was over, the journaling was over, too. And my photographs, unlike my daughter's, are all over. Not in neat albums with captions. Not in albums, really, at all, except for a few of them -- and their existence serves as a reminder that I've been so neglectful of the others!
. . . .
The Blog, somehow, is a place to sort-of diary, to sort-of journal, to sort of maintain an album, to sort (different sort here) things out.
. . . .
So the relief at finding it was huge. Theological stuff started popping up in my head: the bit about the woman who lost the coin and searched "high and low" until she found it, the shepherd who searched for the lost sheep, "I once was lost but now am found," that kind of thing. I chased it away because it was connected with the Saturday sadness, and looked for some other kind of a hermeneutic.
. . . .
And Sam came to mind. My grandson.
. . . .
One of my grandfathers died when I was an infant (or maybe before I was born; I'm not totally sure). My maternal grandparents died when I was ten. My remaining grandmother was a lovely woman, but by the time I'd grown out of the self-centered teen years, senility had set in and I never had the kinds of conversations with her that I would have loved to have had. The Blog, it occurs to me, could be a way for Sam someday to get to know me if he wants to and I'm gone before he's grown. Joe has a sketchbook journal where he draws and writes a bit; browsing through his journal books gives a pretty clear picture of who he is and what is important to him. I thought the Blog might be the same kind of a thing.
. . . .
Is it because I'm getting older that I'm starting to imagine that there would come a day when I wouldn't be here? Is it because I was feeling lost that I was afraid I would actually be lost? And need the Blog as a record that I was here?
. . . .
Dunno. And it is scary to think about the answers.
. . . .
So, mindful that if it happened once, it could happen again -- with a much less happy outcome -- I printed out the contents of the Blog, month by month, and put them in a three-ring binder.
. . . .
I'm kind of fragile, feeling a bit lost. It helps a bit to know I'm there.