Oceanside, Nevada

Once upon a time, back before Tim Berners-Lee created http and the World Wide Web, if you had a computer and you wanted to connect with other people you had two basic choices: BBS’s and AOL.

Sure, you sneer now, but back in the day, AOL was the place to be. Many of the modern conventions of online discourse that we assume have always been got their start in IRC but on AOL they downshifted and really started moving. Like trolls. Sure, trolls have probably existed all the way back to Darpanet but on AOL, lemme tell you, AOL is where the opportunity for Internet assholery became available to the masses for the first time.

Round about 1994, I was working as a pediatric nurse in a transitional home for medically fragile children. I was a fairly new nurse and still learning my way when a child came into our care. I’ll call him Micah for privacy. Micah was born with a neurological defect that severely inhibited the formation of his cerebral cortex. He had what doctors call “smooth brain syndrome.” In a nutshell, the folds and creases that give the brain the surface area it needs for higher order cognitve functions never formed for Micah and never would. For as long as he lived, Micah would never have any cognitive ability much greater than that of an infant.

Outwardly there was nothing obviously wrong with Micah, aside from a certain newborn floppiness that looks odd in an 18 month old and a lack of attentive gaze. With blonde hair, china blue eyes and a high, sweet laugh, Micah became a favorite in the nursery and rarely went long without being rocked or loved on by someone.

Micah ended up living in my facility for several months, long past the age to which he was expected to survive. Since it seemed as if Micah, despite severe disabilty, was basically healthy, it was determined that he would be discharged to a less medically intensive level of care. Micah’s parents were unable to care for him at home, so he was transitioned to a foster home with foster parents experienced in caring for severely disabled kids.

Micah was close to the age of my own son (this was before we knew The Boy was autistic) and bore a slight resemblance, so, after months of caring for this boy as intimately as any parent, I am not ashamed to say that I loved this child. It was hard to let him go, but I did get to meet the foster parents, wonderful people, and was finally able to make peace with the idea.

It was about a month later that we received word that Micah had passed away in his sleep. An undiagnosed cardiac defect—not uncommon in children like Micah—caused him to arrest while sleeping. By the time anyone realized he had slipped away it was too late to have done anything even if a DNR order had not been in place.

Micah was the first pediatric patient I cared for to die and the news of his death came hard. My nurse manager knew about my connection to Micah and sent me home from work until the funeral. I wept for almost two days straight. I don’t think I’d ever cried so hard before and rarely have I since.

Which brings me back to AOL.

I was home late at night hurting and I needed someone to talk with. I think my wife might have been at work and my parent were certainly asleep so, without much thought, I signed into AOL and surfed through the chat rooms. I found one titled “Dealing with Grief,” and logged in. There was just one other person in the chat, a man who identified himself as a grief counselor. We started talking and I let him know how I was feeling. He listened to me for a bit, waited until I was good and exposed and said to me, “you need to get some balls.“

I was stunned, to say the least. I asked him what he was talking about, certain that I hadn’t read that correctly.

“sack up, nancy and quit your queerbait crying about the fucking dead kid.” And then he signed off.

I never went in another chat room, of any kind, ever again. I don’t even like instant messaging.

Which, in turn, brings me to the present. My previous post was an attempt to convey the inspiration I had felt at having found what I thought was the first real online community that truly embodied the concept, for me at least. I meant no harm, and thought I was expressing gratitude.

Someone else didn’t see it that way. About midway through the day I ran across a tweet from the person in question that seemed rather out of tone for them. It struck me as odd, but I didn’t make the connection at the time. Then, later that afternoon, I received this DM:

“I’m really glad you were inspired. But next time, try writing about something you asked permission to reference first. Thanks. Bye.“

My first reaction was, aw shit, I said something to piss them off. I didn’t know what it was I’d said, but I’ve been pissing people off long enough that I’ve learned that I don’t really have to put a lot of effort into it. I was driving at the time, so I wasn’t able to respond right away. As soon as could, though, I dm’d this person back, apologized, told them I’d pull the post.

Twitter auto-responded with: “This person does not follow you. Send ‘follow this person’ to request.“

So, the first unfollow by someone whom I admire, because of something I had said, and suddenly it was 1994 again, that same gut punch without warning. Perhaps it would have been different had they just quietly unfollowed, as people do all the time. It’s why I don’t see the need for services like Qwitter: if someone isn’t liking the show, they can just slip out, no need for drama. But a parting shot like that, followed up with an unfollow almost seems calculated to ratchet up the drama. I’m not saying this was this person’s intent, but, in lieu of any other way for me to find out, I can’t prove otherwise. The point I want to make is this: If I had been given the opportunity to rectify the issue, I would have tried. I was not, so I couldn’t.

I felt bad. I felt really bad. When I got home, I deleted the post. I cut and pasted a copy for myself to review later to try to determine what I had said that was just so bad. I posted an apology and dm’d one other person with a connection to this story to explain what had happened.

I met my wife at the park to share a quiet moment. We had a smoke and talked about the day. Finally she asked what was bothering me. I related the whole story to her as she listened quietly. Finally she said “I don’t know if this is your problem.”

She was right, of course, though it took me several hours to come around to the same conclusion. After we got home, I sat and thought, gnawing on my own liver for hours. Those who know me well—and anyone who’s struggled this far into this post—knows that I over think and obsess about things to the point of distraction. I briefly considered deleting my Twitter account, hell, I thought for awhile about taking down my blog, all five years worth, because nobody listening is one thing, but making people angry? What would be the point?

The Boy went to bed that night in tears for something that no amount of questioning could tease out. This is not uncommon for him and the only thing to do is to lay there in the dark and try to provide some sort of comfort. As I lay with him, I reviewed the whole incident in my mind, trying to unravel the knot and see what I had done that was so wrong.

My inspiration for what I had written came from a blog post written by the person in question that described the experience of having a bad day and feeling like being back in high school again. It was brief and, without context, cryptic but written in what one of my former writing instructors would have described as “a strong hand.” I thought it a good, solid piece of prose and, reading it again, I still do.

My first two years of high school were a living hell that can be tidily summarized by looking through the yearbook for my sophomore year. In it, there’s a picture of four of my tormentors standing in a hallway. To paraphrase the caption: Bully A, Bully B, Bully C and Bully D have Wood trapped in a locker. It was my only “picture” in the book.

I think I know a bit about high school trauma and angst.

As I replayed these fun memories, there in the dark next to my weeping child, I finally asked myself, with some disgust, at what point in this whole story did I become a 13 year old girl, to be so twisted up about this? I mean, I’m 41, I’m married with children and a career and I’m all wadded up inside because I inadvertently pissed off another presumedly grown man. That’s when I started to move from feeling bad to feeling kind of angry. After The Boy fell asleep, I went back and read my copy of the original post, read the blog post that had started me on this path and came to the conclusion: this really isn’t my problem.

I didn’t claim to understand the writer’s circumstance, in fact, I feel I was rather specific that I didn’t. But here’s the thing: let’s say you carry a hod, day in and day out while I carry bags of mortar. I understand that, in that circumstance, I’m not qualified to comment on the inequities felt by hod carriers and it would presumptuous of me to try. But bags of mortar are also heavy so I think I can comment on what it feels like to carry a burden, even if my burden is different from yours.

So I thought back to the dm, and the point that I had not asked to reference the original post in my comment. This is true, I did not. This is the part where I have to bite my tongue a bit to keep from saying what I am really motivated to say, but I do wish I could ask the person in question this: have you actually been on the Internet? Because that’s kind of the whole point of this thing. The http protocol was specifically created to make it easy to link documents and facilitate easy references between them. If your post was so deeply and personally felt, what exactly are you doing putting on the Internet, of all places? Are you seriously not aware that any number of people could have done what I did without you being aware of it at all?

I read through this person’s blog yet again and found no request for privacy or pre-approval and nothing forbidding linking, any of which I would have honored had I known about them previously. I didn’t quote this person, so there was no logical reason to expect attribution should be given. In summary, I am flat baffled by this person’s offense at being referenced when they never gave indication that they wouldn’t want to be. This is the second point on which I want to be clear: If I had known I was doing something that you did know want me to do, I would not have. I had no indication of that prior and in regards to linking vs. not linking, without prior notice, linking is the default, at least on the Internet I know. Or am I to believe that you explicitly request permission prior to linking anything on your blog?

Friend, you have baggage. I also have baggage. We all do. I’ll help you carry your baggage if I can and if you want me to, but I am not obligated to carry it. If you don’t want me to see and comment on what you’re carrying around in that baggage, my suggestion is that you don’t leave it laying open where anyone can peer inside.

Blogging is a lot of things: it can be news, opinion, commentary, any number of things, but for many of us, myself and, I can only assume, the person to whom I’ve been referring, blogging is a place to put the words that we have inside us, to let them before they can hurt us. Sometimes, in doing that, we hurt others, intentionally or otherwise. That was never my intent.

If you’ve borne with me this far, thank you. This isn’t really for anyone but me, the blog equivalent of that last word you always wish you’d thought of or had the chance to say. I’ve taken down my apology because, at this point, I don’t really feel I’m obligated to make one. I regret the hard feelings but it doesn’t look like I’ll be able to change that. I reposted my original post because I’m proud of it, despite the fallout, and I edited out the reference to the person in question, in deference to their feelings. I intend to follow that person again even though I expect them to block me. If this happens, it will be my loss, because despite what happened, I still think the person in question is damned funny and a good writer.

To the people who commented on my original post, I want to say thanks for your kind comments and I’m sorry that they were lost when I deleted it. To anyone who’s managed to struggle to the end of this long and overwrought bloviation, thank you as well.

I’m going to take a break for awhile partly to thicken my own skin up again, but also for other obligations. I’ll be back shortly to drop more f-bombs and dumb jokes and I look forward to seeing everyone when I do.

See you.

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