Excellent and heartfelt post. You definitely put your soul into that one. My (probably late at this point) condolences/sympathy for your mother -- is she still alive at this point? I know a little of such scary revelations, as my sister was diagnosed with MS (Multiple Schlerosis, not the much worse Micro Soft!) ten years ago now almost, and I, as the only brother left in the house, fell into the role of being her carer.
At the time I was still holding down a fulltime job, and did so for another seven years, until in 2009 I took voluntary redundancy to become her fulltime carer. As an offshoot of that, I found I had a lot more spare time (in between looking after her, as she had by now become bedbound and totally dependent on me for everything), and so, having been on MB before but unable to keep up the level of interest/contribution I wanted to, I returned here and found that in my new role I was able to update much more frequently, and watched with growing satisfaction and not a little humility as my viewcount steadily grew, till now, not even a year later, it exceeds the ten thousand mark. I think this is possibly unique, or certainly unusual for someone who has been posting for such a relatively short period, and I'm grateful people are reading and hopefully enjoying what I write.
What I have found, for what it's worth, is that MB can be a real source of therapy and release. I relax when I'm writing for my journal, and though I may suddenly be called by my sister in the middle of an account, review or the creation of a graphic, I can come back here when I've discharged my responsibility to her.
I never had a big social circle, and what few friends I had were either at work, whom I now see very little due to circumstances, or have drifted, or in one case, passed, away, leaving me fairly much on my own. My two other brothers do not help, nor keep in contact, so that I feel that other than the intervention of my older sister, my younger sister and I are left to flounder in a sea of disinterest and misery, but that's ok.
Without somewhere like this to come to, and the freedom MB allows us in our journals, the freeform aspect of it, I wonder if I would have dealt as well with Karen's illness as I believe I have. It's more than a port in a storm, it's almost a home from home, or even a social club (NOT network --- remember social clubs? REAL clubs?) that you can go to whenever you want without having to leave the comfort of your own home.
I've had lots of arguments on various forums, many of which have forced me to see that I am in fact not always right, though I may think I am. It's been something of a humbling process, but it has taught me a lot about myself. When I first came here I was shocked, annoyed and then outraged at what I perceived to be elitism, in that most people laughed at what they saw as my limited musical choices (rock/prog rock/metal/classical/bit of country etc), and seemed to think that if you weren't an avid fan of Declan and the Lamposts from Hell or Trees Talk Too, or a hundred other, to me, unknown bands, then you didn't know what you were talking about and weren't worth talking to.
I managed to reconcile this via a long post, and also via support from Jackhammer among others, and now I don't care who thinks my music is limited: I review what I like and hope people also like it. If they don't then that's fine too, but I'm not going to get into particular bands or worse, drop the ones I like, just because they are/aren't seen as being in vogue.
So a lot has been learned, water has flowed under many bridges and here we are at this point, older and hopefully wiser. Though I'm not into your music, or all of it, I do enjoy your posts. You write very well and with obviously great thought put into everything you say, and it's always at the very least interesting and articulate.
I think the journal section is really where the proper writers on the forum flourish. Anyone can write "Bon Jovi are crap" or "My favourite band is" or any of a thousand other generic posts, slag one another off with this band versus that band, but to review albums, concerts, discographies and write accounts in support of or against certain bands or types of music, the kind of thing we all do in our journals, and to try to introduce people to new music or explain how good what you listen to is and why, takes a certain amount of talent. Not everyone can do it.
So if there is an elitism in MB, perhaps it's here, in the Members' Journals.
Yay! I'm slightly better than other people!
Seriously, keep up the good work. I'll always check out any new posts in your journal. And hope things are beginning to work out for you at this point.
Best
Trollheart