Hello, everyone reading this blog from the former U.S.S.R!

I haven't been doing this very much over the years, but I decided to take a look at the traffic statistics for this blog. What I found surprised me. Here's the overall pageviews for this blog:

Pageviews by Countries

Graph of most popular countries among blog viewers
EntryPageviews
United States
8018
Russia
2733
Germany
849
United Kingdom
746
Canada
487
China
270
Ukraine
257
France
240
Netherlands
207
Australia
185

Now, the numbers for the United States are...well, not too surprising. I mean, I live here, and most of what I write about is decidedly American. Or, so I thought.

The blog post that has the most readers is one that I really didn't put too much into writing because it was a reaction to some very powerful memories and emotions that emerged during the process of detoxification from all flour and sugar products, and excess portions of food. I named that post, "Emotional Incest", and it is responsible for the most visits to this blog. That fact alone is extremely mind-boggling to me. Quite frankly, I posted that as a knee-jerk reaction to what I was going through at the time. I was pissed off at everyone and everything, a common reaction that addicts of all types have to the detoxification process. I wanted to blame someone for what I was going through, and when things were going wrong in my life, who got the blame? My mother. Yes, it's always the mother's fault, isn't it? I couldn't accept responsibility for the mess I made of my own life, the way sane adults should. I had to cast the angry, accusing finger at her, even though she did everything within her power and the very limited information she had available to her at the time, to help me with my binge eating disorder. It makes me sad that to think about how she definitely did try to help me, and how I didn't appreciate her efforts. But she was only human, and in my case, my food addiction is definitely "cunning, baffling and powerful", and pretty much beyond any conventional diet plan and/or traditional therapy. Of course, my mother didn't know that at the time. All she knew was that her oldest child (me) was rapidly blowing up like a Goodyear blimp, and my eating was out of control. She just couldn't help me, and that wasn't her fault. At that time, no one could.

Now, here's what really blew my mind--not only did the post "Emotional Incest" have the most visitors here in the United States, but it appears to have the most page views from people living in Russia. Russia? ARE YOU KIDDING ME?!! That is just so uber super ultra COOL!!! Here I am, a "Cold War baby" who grew up on Air Force bases, attended schools run by the Department of Defense where we had regular atomic bomb drills because the U.S.S.R. was our "enemy", and, one of the biggest ironies of my life, folks from Russia are reading that post! I mean, my father spent his early years in the United States Air Forces as a radar operator tracking MiG 15s during the Korean War! I don't know what he would say if I told him that I have many people living in Russia who have visited on my blogs. Actually, I do know what he would say: "What's that, honey? What's a blog?" My poor dad has very little knowledge of the Internet. But he will probably chuckle and shake his head with amusement when I tell him that some of the writing I publish on the Internet has many readers who live in Russia.  And, I think, he will be happy about that. The Internet has done something that was once thought to be entirely impossible--bring the people of Russia and America just a little bit closer to the realization that we are all HUMAN BEINGS, and co-inhabitants of this planet. Not enemies, or mindless participants in an economic system as our politicians would like us to think, but real flesh and blood homo sapiens. In that regard, we really are the same.

But I can't even begin to speculate as to why "Emotional Incest" would garner so many page views in Russia. Quite frankly, I don't know enough about the culture and family life of Russia to see how there could be parallel "dysfunctional" issues within Russian families. Perhaps we have a lot more in common than anyone could have ever thought back in the Korean War, or even as recently as...yesterday. (I'm smiling right now, by the way.) Maybe somewhere in Russia, there was a little girl who grew up listening her mother complain about how her father, and even though it made her feel very sick inside, she felt it was her duty and responsibility to  not only listen, but to try to comfort and somehow help make her mother's life a little easier. And even though that little girl did her best to help her mother, ultimately she failed to help her solve her problems. And her mother was still very, very unhappy. And as a consequence, that little girl up feeling that she had failed in her quest to comfort her mother, and as she became an adult herself, watched as her mother became more and more angry, bitter and desperately unhappy. I really hope there has never been such a little girl growing up like that Russia. It's a very sad way to live.

So, I'm going to say my readers living in Russia, I say Zdravstvujtye! (That means hello, to my English speaking readers.)! Please say hello to me in the comment section, even if you write it in Russian. I can translate the words through Google, and even if I can't, say hello in your language anyway. I think it is so wonderful that you have read my posts, and I would absolutely, positively LOVE IT if you, as we say here in the U.S., give me a shout-out! I love ya!

All right, I had to do it! Here's a link to the The Beatles' song "Back in the U.S.S.R."!


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