Posts from — June 2011

Welcome back to IComLeavWe. It stands for International Comment Leaving Week, but if you say it aloud, doesn’t it sounds like “I come; [but] leave [as a] we”? And that’s sort of the point. Blogging is a conversation and comments should be honoured and encouraged. I like to say that comments are the new hug–a way of saying hello, giving comfort, leaving congratulations.

Here is the vital information, pure and simple (a more detailed set of rules follows below the list):

• The list opens the 1st of every month. It remains open until the 21st. You can add yourself at any point. The list is open to everyone in the blogosphere — blog writers and/or blog readers.
• Add yourself to the list by filling out this form: The list is now closed.  The August list will open on 7/30.
• Click here to cut-and-paste this bit of code to add to your sidebar (if you have the old code from another month, remove it and replace it with this one). You need to add the icon or a link to the current list on your blog (see below) and will not be added until it’s up.
• Commenting kicks off every month on the 21st. Please mark it somewhere (calendar, post-it note taped to your computer…), though I will be sending out an email reminder on the 20th. Commenting week runs from the 21st to the 28th. Every day, leave 5 comments and return 1 comment for a total of 6 comments. You are highly encouraged to choose the blogs you comment on from the participants list below, but this is not required.
• I will send a second email on the 28th to remind you to remove the icon from your blog.
• Read below if you want to find out about Iron Commenters.
• The commenting ends on the 28th. We catch our breath and the whole thing starts again the next month on the 1st. Drop in and out according to what is happening in your life between the 21st and the 28th.

1. Stirrup Queens (twins, books, writing)
2. The 2 Week Wait (TTC, infertility, pregnancy)
3. Here We Go Again (babyloss, parenting, random)
4. Mommy-In-Waiting (pregnant, twins, IVF#4)
5. Cats With Passports (baby after IVF, autoimmune issues, life overseas)
6. Bio Girl (parenting, infertility, endometriosis)
7. As Good As it Gets? (infertility, parenting, TTC/adoption=confusion)
8. Not a Fertile Myrtle (waiting, mfi, endo)
9. A Little Hope in My Pocket (pregnancy loss, infertility, life)
10. Climber’s Blog Gone Mommy (donor IVF pregnancy)
11. Meier Madness (pcos, iui, case of the crazies)
12. Finding My New Normal (stillbirth, grief, donor egg IVF)
13. Dragondreamer’s Lair (parenting, secondary infertility, crafts)
14. Weathering the Storm (domestic adoption, homestudy, waiting)
15. The Journey to Baby G (ivf, anxiety, humor)
16. Hannah Wept, Sarah Laughed (infertility, donor egg, hope)
17. Feeling Beachie (life, humor, pets)
18. Baby, Borneo, or Bust… (travel, parenting, TTC#2)
19. Baby On Mind (IVF, TTC#1, unexplained)
20. Wonderfully Ordinary (parenting, infertility, life)
21. for all the things we hope for (unexplained infertility, nursing school, miscarriage)
22. Trying To Conceive (IVF, pregnancy after IVF, emotions)
23. Creating a Family (infertility, adoption, adoptive parenting)
24. Marriage 2.0 (adoption, weight loss, married life)
25. Because Two People Fell In Love (puppy, loss, life)
26. Wistfulgirl’s World (infertility, weight loss, life)
27. Slowmamma (pregnancy loss, parenting, coping with all of the above)
28. Created Family (unexplained infertility, miscarriage, grad school)
29. Riding the IVF Roller Coaster (TasIVFer) (pregnancy after IVF/loss)
30. Stress Free Infertility (support, tips, success)
31. My Scarlet Baby (adoption, waiting, life)
32. Les Terres Fertiles (unexplained, infertility, feelings)
33. I’m polycystic inside (beginning fertility treatments)
34. Witty Infertility (infertility, VA benefits, weightloss)
35. Savor the Moment (pcos, life, love)
36. Lifeslurper (over 40, donor eggs, Australia)
37. Becoming Parents (irreverent, ttc#1, ivf/gestational carrier)
38. Mission: Fertile Soul (infertility, adoption, happiness)
39. It Is What It Is (Or Is It?) (domestic adoption, parenting after 40, life)
40. Colours of Cattiz (ivf, male factor, uk)
41. InDueTime (infertility, life, college)
42. Cammie.Me (parenting, unemployment, food)
43. Navigating Cyberloss (grief, loss, cyberloss)
44. The Suburban Princess Diaries (pregnancy, parenting, humor)
45. Eggs In A Row (pcos, infertility, coping)
46. MissConception (IVF, PCOS, twins)
47. First Time Twins (miscarriage, infertility, ivf)
48. My Lady of the Lantern (neonatal loss, grief, newly pregnant)
49. Kate; uncensored (brutally honest life)
50. Survive and Thrive (infertility, hope, waiting…)
51. The Chronicles of Violetta Margarita (unexplained infertility, IVF)
52. Are You Listening (toddlerdom, ttc #2, random)
53. Every Day Is A Country Song (ttc #1 after 5 miscarriages in a row, possible use of donor sperm, faith)
54. Not Just An Army Wife (iui, miscarriage, military)
55. BattleFish (life, infertility, loss of mom)
56. Crunchy Cupcakes (kids, pregnancy, attached parenting)
57. Baby Steps to Motherhood (IVF, infertility, TTC)
58. The Twinners Reviews & Giveaways (reviews, giveaways, weight loss)
59. Elana’s Musings (family, twins, infertility)
60. HimPlusMe (infertility, pcos, life)
61. Trying Times (recurrent miscarriage emotions)
62. The Rocky Road to Motherhood (IVF, pregnancy, life)
63. Chasing Our Stork: Our Journey with Infertility (international adoption, infertility, Hashimoto’s Thyroiditis)
64. Hoping For Baby Graham (miscarriage, hope, love)
65. Bring on the Babies… (IVF, miscarriage, recurrent loss)
66. Cinderella Wore Glass Slippers (infertility, another FET?, adoption)
67. Me, myself and Mom (TTC #2, family, drama)
68. A Little Blog About the Big Infertility (and Adoption too!) (RPL, anxiety from IF, domestic adoption)
69. We’re Making a Baby (twins, pregnant (again), home)
70. Holly’s Narrative Dream (secondary infertility, coping, life)
71. Zygotta (early pregnancy, PCOS, IF)
72. TTC A Modern Medicine Miracle (loss, donor sperm, military life)
73. Flogging the Muse (art, painting, creativity)
74. This International Life (travel, expat life, Europe)
75. It’s Just Us Chickens (ivf1, ttc, mfi)
76. Annoyed Army Wife (armywife, infertility, pets)
77. A Field of Dreams (parenting, weightloss, humour)
78. Pink or Blue: Either will do! (infertility ttc information)
79. Life As I Know It (twins, life, infant)
80. Tippy and Tidy’s Tumultuous Trip to Toddlers (ttc#1, unexplained, donor egg)
81. A peek into our journey (IVF #1 2ww)
82. The Stork Drop Zone (infertility, humor, life)
83. Adventures of a Nomadic Housewife. (Ttc#2, life, weightloss)
84. MoJoWorking (IVF, infertility, miscarriage)
85. Buy a Baby? (military, frustration, humor)
86. The Ladies in Waiting Book Club (infertility, books, community)
87. Lil Family Blog (motherhood, lesbians, adoption)
88. Searching for the Missing Piece (adoption, repeated miscarriage, creativity)
89. The Pursuit of Pregnancy (RPL, autoimmune, DOR)
90. Paradykes (surrogacy, cards, life)
91. The Unfair Struggle (mfi, speedskating, life)
92. Rainbow Making 101 (TTC, clomid, trigger shot)
93. Infertile is the New Black (infertility, IVF, relationships)
94. I Want to be a Daddy (male infertility experience)
95. All About God’s Grace (infertility, marriage, faith)
96. Hearts Joined, Hands Fast (ivf, mfi, hope)
97. The Barreness (earth, art, infertility)
98. Zero Guarantees (miscarriage 9x, now suro is pregnant)
99. Cradles and Graves ( cord-related losses, rainbow any day? )
100. His & Her Infertility (Just Like The Matching Towels) ( PCOS, azoo, international adoption )
101. A New Song ( parenting after infertility, ttc #2, life )
102. Great Expectations ( PCOS, clomid, humor )
103. IUI to Roux-en-Y ( weight loss, surgery, my journey )
104. Taking the Long Way ( rpl, ectopic and miscarriage, currently pregnant )
105. The Army Doctor’s Wife ( pcos, life married to a new medical intern, daily rambling )
106. A Miracle in the Works (infertility, loss, ttc)
107. Adventures of Endo in the Arctic (endometriosis, IVF, infertility)
108. TTC Baby E (ttc#1, pcos, clomid)
109. Wishing and Hoping and Thinking and Praying (pcos, 1st pregnancy loss, teaching)
110. Storm in My Teacup (on-hold IVF #2)
111. Everyday is a Winding Road (first IVF, infertility)
112. Digital-Damita.net (frugal, green, ttc)
113. The Sun’ll Come Out Tomorrow (I Hope) (baby after RPL)
114. A Freckled Life (infertility marriage life)
115. One Day: Ill get my baby bump (recent 1st M/C, finding my feet again, life)
116. Lissie’s Luck (PCOS IVF hope?)
117. Historias Secretas (ivf, pregnancy, expat)
118. GoTeamBaby (IVF, infertility, hope)
119. Carney Exploits (infertility, remodeling, life)
120. Walking An Unknown Path (infertility, miscarriage, life)
121. Just Us and the Cat (fets, life, husband)
122. IFSerenityNow (pregnancy, IF, life)
123. The One in Eight Couple (unexplained infertility, IUI #1, hope)
124. Ambition: Motherhood (mfi, diui, renewal)
125. Embracing the Rain (natural cycle ivf, dor, rpl)
126. Not Exactly What I Had Planned (severe mfi, IVF #2)
127. Buck Up, Buttercup (FET, travel, grief)
128. Then Comes the Baby in the Baby Carriage (TTC# 1, miscarriage, tcm)
129. Our Life Journey (infertility, embryo adoption, life)
130. Traditionally Nontraditional (life, infertility, humor)
131. Daydreams And… (daydream, military, strength)
132. Just Stop Trying and It Will Happen (infertility, life, snarkiness)
133. Bohemian Transplant (photography, infertility, food)
134. Watering Faith’s Seed (fet, faith, ttc #2)
135. Always Looking For Something New (ttc, fitness, food)
136. The list is now closed.  The August list will open on 7/30.

Q: What if I miss a day?

A: Catch up the next day by doubling your comments – 12 comments instead of 6.

Q: What if I have two blogs? Can I sign up twice, listing both blogs?

A: Yes, but you also need to double your comments. If you have two blogs listed, you should be leaving 12 comments per day.

Q: What is an Iron Commenter?

A: Not for the faint-of-heart. People who wish to be an Iron Commenter and be entered on the Iron Commenter honour roll need to leave a comment on every blog on the participants list (exceptions are blogs that require you to have a special log-in, such as some LiveJournal accounts or other similar situations). You can spread out this commenting any way you wish over the whole week, but the final comment needs to be left by midnight on the 28th (EST). Reaching Iron Commenter status is done on an honour system. Please email me if you earn Iron Commenter status so I can add you to the wall of honour.

Q: Why do I have to add that bit of code to my sidebar?

A: The code is the latest icon (the icon changes colour every month so you know that you’re on the right list). This month, the icon is blue, the next month it will be yellow, etc. The reason is two-fold: (1) it enables more people to find out about IComLeavWe and (2) it gives you easy access to the current list once the commenting week actually begins and better ensures that you’ll use it. Too many times, people sign up and forget to actually do IComLeavWe and this icon gives you a daily reminder (with the dates on it) every time you open your own blog. The icon is linked back to the current list. On the 28th, remove the icon from your blog. A new one will be created for the next month.

Q: It’s the 23rd and I just saw this for the first time on my friend’s blog! I want to join the list–why can’t I?

A: Because IComLeavWe happens every month, once the list is closed, it’s closed. If you’re finding out about this on the 23rd, you can’t join the current month. But leave yourself a note to check back in a week on the 1st and you can sign up for the next month.

Q: You said the list closes on the 21st. Well, it’s still the 21st where I am. Why aren’t you moving my information onto the list?

A: All dates and times are U.S. Eastern Standard Time (UTC/GMT -5 hours). The list closes around 11 p.m. EST on the 21st.

Q: What if no one comments on my blog and I have no comments to return?

A: Well, that really doesn’t happen for the most part, but in that case, simply choose another blog and add an additional comment. The goal is to hit 6 comments daily as a minimum. Going over that is fantastic and encouraged.

Q: Mel, my question wasn’t covered at all. What do I do?

A: Email me; I’m quite friendly. It helps to place “IComLeavWe” in the subject line. You could also check this post which contains the history of IComLeavWe and see if you can glean anything there.

Looking for the comment section? It has been closed on this post. Use the form in the directions to add yourself to the list.

It well may be
That we will never meet again
In this lifetime
So let me say before we part
So much of me
Is made of what I learned from you
You’ll be with me
Like a handprint on my heart
And now whatever way our stories end
I know you have re-written mine
By being my friend
–”For Good” from Wicked

I heard a wonderful story a few weeks ago. (I hope the woman who told me it won’t mind that I’m summarizing it here.  I unfortunately didn’t get her name, and have no way of contacting her, but if she reads this, know that when I tried to retell it to my husband, I burst into tears in the car.)

A woman had a best friend that she spoke to every day at least twice a day — first thing in the morning and last thing before bed.  They raised their children together, their husbands were business colleagues.  Down the road, after a move severed the first threads of their friendship, the relationship ended after the woman’s divorce.  Her husband took that couple into his circle of friends.

34 years passed, and the woman never stopped thinking of her friend.  She knew she would be in New York on a trip, which is where this woman lived.  So she called her and they set up a time to meet.  When the friend came down the steps, she said a special saying that the two of them used to recite about their friendship.  And in that moment, this woman knew that it hadn’t been unrequited love — that her friend had missed her just as much as she had missed her friend.  They had both thought of each other for 34 years.  And now, they’re finally back together again.

She told me this story because I was in New York, speaking about my book, Life from Scratch, which is about female friendships just as much as it is about rebuilding your life after a divorce or blogging.  I opened talking about the book by relaying some stories from my friendship with Julie and how they influenced the book.

As she spoke, I thought about friends who got away.  About friends who passed through my life for a few years, who were intense connections that for whatever reason didn’t continue.  And isn’t this what we all dream about — that we find out that the relationship meant exactly as much to the other person?  That they missed us just as much as we missed them?

What is it about our female friendships that make us cry when we try to talk about them?  I can’t tell you how many people tried to speak to me after the talk and got choked up as they relayed a story about their best friend.  And even worse, I don’t know this woman OR her friend, but when I tried to tell her story to Josh, I started crying because you can’t help but think of your own friendships — how you would feel if you ever lost them.

As we drove home, Josh told me about an NPR interview he heard with Stephen Schwartz who wrote the musical Wicked.  A song from the show, “For Good,” was featured in both Glee and the last Oprah show.  It is a song about two friends — one who has had many friendships and one who has only had this one — who have to part.  And they are saying everything that needs to be said to one another knowing they may never see each other again.

Stephen Schwartz, by virtue of the fact that he has a penis, didn’t know how to handle this idea.  How would two close female friends feel?  He asked his daughter to imagine what she would say to her best friend in this situation.

In the NPR interview, Stephen Schwartz says that his daughter told him:

She said no matter what person I become, there will always be in me the girl you knew, and no matter who I become, I would never have been that without knowing you.

And maybe that is why we connect so intensely with our female friends.  I can’t say those same words to my ex-boyfriends.  They were all well and good, but I don’t miss them like I miss my old female friends.  I can’t say that inside of me is still the girl that my ex-boyfriend-who-has-a-heart-the-size-of-a-rancid-sesame-seed knew.  He knew a side of me that I’m not proud of and has hopefully been squashed out of my existence.  I didn’t like who I was when I was with him.

Whereas that girl that my friend, J, knew in high school (who was a very different girl than the one my boyfriends at the time saw.  She got to see a deeper side of me that I didn’t reveal to many people) — she’s still buried somewhere in here.  J knew the essential Melissa; Melissa-boiled-down-to-her-core-traits.  And that Melissa is still around, completely changed and set on this life direction due to that friendship.  And I would agree with Stephen Schwartz’s assessment — if not for better, than at least it is for good.  I don’t think I could make a conscious choice not to incorporate the changes she created in me.  Our friendship changed me permanently; as do all my close female friendships.

I think the point of our relationships prior to the person you create a life with is to help you figure out who you want to love forever.  Dating is about figuring out what you want.  Friendships — those are about figuring out who you are.  What matters to you.  How you see the world.  And one day, hopefully if our female friendships have prepared us enough, we can take what we learn from them and make that man or woman we commit our lives to our best friend.

Which is not to say that our best friends don’t still have important work to do.  People evolve, and we need that support to navigate each change.  From the tiny readjustments of personality that come from a normal day, to the life changing events.

I could not have found Josh and become a good wife without my female friendships shaping me into the person I’ve become.  I could not continue to parent and love in the manner in which my family has become accustomed if not for the continued support of my friends.

I asked this of the programmers at the presentation (and so many people found me afterwards and answered it — I heard some wonderful stories that night.  People speak so effusively about their friends that I could almost picture these invisible people who were connected to the people in front of me).

Tell me about your best friend (and if any of it influences a character relationship in the sequel to Life from Scratch, you and your friend will get full credit in the thank you section).

Josh left this fantastic comment on the blogoversary post which a lot of people commented about.  Yes, my husband reads my blog.  Every once in a while, he comments.  Sometimes he will bring up a post over dinner.  But most of the time, it’s just this small comfort to know that he is quietly out there, noting my words, and we don’t need to talk about it.

I know some people keep their blog from their partner because it’s their space, a private swatch of the Internet where they can place their thoughts.  But I have such oral diarrhea about my feelings that I feel the opposite — I wouldn’t want to write this space if Josh wasn’t reading it.  He is the one who told me to start it, so really, if you want to thank someone for this space, it should be him.

What people didn’t know when they read that comment is that it came on a day when he was running around like crazy to get a gala into place.  It took an incredible amount of work on top of his normal job, and he was stretched thin.

At the gala that night, they brought him and another man onto stage to thank them for their work on the evening.  I was speaking to the mother of the other man during the cocktail hour and she said, “did your heart explode when they brought Josh onto the stage to thank him?  Because my heart was out to here seeing my son up there.”

And the only thing I could say is that my heart explodes every time I see Josh.  Period.

It explodes when I see him being honoured on stage, and it explodes when he’s washing the dishes.  It especially explodes when he takes all the night wakings from the kids so I can sleep.  It explodes when he’s trying on t-shirts at Old Navy and it explodes when he’s telling me about something he heard on NPR and it explodes when he’s patiently pausing Battlestar Gallactica and explaining something to me for the thirtieth time.  And yes, of course it explodes when he accomplishes something amazing like having his play performed on stages around the world or when he’s asked to present at a conference.  But my heart explodes.  Period.

The best way I can explain Josh is using this idea that a friend told me about the medication he takes.  My understanding based on piecing together snippets of explanation is that when he isn’t on it, he feels like there is this enormous chasm in his brain, this dark blot that holds his attention more than the outside world.  It has a pull, and that pull makes him focus on it instead of relationships or tasks at hand.  It makes him anxious and depressed because he is well aware that there is life outside the blot, but he can’t drag his attention away from that dark hole.

The medication literally plugs that hole, is the missing puzzle piece that slips into place, effectively covering up the dark blot.  With the medication in place, he can be this completely different person, one who can look in multiple directions and pay attention to details.

Perhaps that isn’t the most romantic way to describe my husband, but it is the most honest way.  I feel like most of us are born with this missing piece inside of us, and either we find that completion or we don’t.  Perhaps the luckiest ones are born without that need for companionship, but I also count myself amongst the lucky because I have found my missing piece, that person who slips quietly into my brain, plugging the dark blots of life so I can concentrate on being my best self.

I knew from the first date with Josh that he was the equivalent of what this medication was for my friend because I literally felt like a different person talking with him.  I felt like a better version of myself.  I felt like even though it was night time and winter, it was somehow sunnier.  I just felt better, even though, if you had asked me before I walked downstairs to get into his car, I would have said that I felt fine.

Because I did feel fine before Josh.  I just feel better now with Josh.  Just as there were people in my life who I could have married and made a life with and they would have been fine.  They would have been a decent fit.  But Josh is a perfect fit and therefore, in finding that completion I feel better than fine.

This particular fish needs a bicycle.

So thank you Josh, for reading, for commenting, for being you.

Thank you for the blogoversary wishes (and apologies for both posts becoming so damn long). Someone joked that I must grow tired of hearing nice things and… well… no.  Because I tell myself such shitty things about myself. (I am seriously the worst sort of bully because I can’t even report myself to the principal.)  I know I’m not alone (right?) in being a terrible, relentless critic of myself, therefore, we need these kind words to counterbalance the damage we do to ourselves.  It’s probably the real reason for awards and birthday wishes and retirement parties — we all collectively know about our private self-esteem issues and we do each other a favour of trying to balance out the internalized negativity with external words.  I always hope that your external words get closer to the truth than my internal monologue.  At my best moments, I believe it all.  At my worst moments, my internal monologue convinces me that it’s the rest of the world that has it wrong.

At all moments, those posts are the ones I return to when I am feeling crappy about myself.  So your words don’t just affect me today.  It’s such a simple thing — you leave a comment, but know that your words are used many times throughout the year.  And they are what makes the difference.

*******

I started running again this week.  A big part of why I stopped running this year had to do with time.  The only slot I had for running was 6 am, and I tried it a bunch of times before giving up.  The reality is that I’m not fantastic at waking up, probably due to the fact that it takes me so long to fall asleep that I live with a constant sleep deficit.  So running first thing in the morning failed miserably because I spent the first five minutes after the alarm went off wishing for a power outage so I wouldn’t have to workout. (I run inside.)

My schedule opened up so I’ve gone back to my much more realistic running time which comes after a cup of coffee and three pee breaks.  I actually enjoy running when I’m fully awake.

I have a notebook where I record miles run and estimated calories burned.  I also record my weight from time to time, though I’ve stopped stepping on a scale because I was becoming obsessed with the number.  On Monday, I leafed back through the book to the very beginning to see my weight back in 2001 when the notebook begins.

I thought I was so heavy back then.  I was so self-conscious of my body.  Of course, I was nine pounds lighter than I am right now.  It is this bizarre thing, trying to get back to the weight where I thought I was unattractive.  I have in my brain right now that if I could just reach that weight from 2001, my clothes will fit so much better.  Back in 2001, I would do anything to not be that weight.  Right now, it seems like perfection.

Funny how things change.

What did you think of your body ten years ago?  And how do you think about your body from ten years ago now?

*******

And now the blogs…

But first, second helpings of the posts that appeared in the open comment thread last week.  In order to read the description before clicking over, please return to the open thread:

• “Your Dream Will Change… and That’s Okay” (The Road Less Travelled)

Okay, now my choices this week.

My Lady of the Lantern has a post in bullet points, each one a little kick to the gut.  All of them will hold you for a moment, but it was the last one that I sat with the longest.  “I had a dream today. In the days after knowing of CheekyBub’s death and later, I begged God to not make me have any visions or dreams or such. I had one today, and am glad to report it was positive.”

The Port of Indecision has a kickass post about the financial side of infertility.  She reeled me in with her opening point about infertility being discussed differently from the rest of medicine.  “Face it, folks, the entire field of medicine is an industry. It’s why Big Pharma sponsors clinical trials. It’s why commercials urge you to ‘talk to your doctor about [new drug here]‘ instead of actually being a patient and seeing what the doctor suggests.”  This has always been one of my annoyances too, especially because the label is simultaneously unspoken commentary about the patient.

I love this post about what it means to have it all by It Is What It Is (or It Is?).  Both her ideas on why the waiting during adoption is so difficult for her, but also deconstructing the idea of having it all.  I think her ideas on wanting will resonate with a lot of people, especially in an age of immediacy coupled with the means to obtain inanimate objects.

Lastly, Write Mind Open Heart has a post not about why bad things happen to good people, but simply the fact that they do.  From the idea of the flattened orange peel (really, you’ll want to read this post and understand that) to the lesson her daughter learned, she captivate me with this idea of how no one human can escape disappointment.  And the trick is learning how to love your blemishes rather than only focus on how to remove them.

The roundup to the Roundup: Thank you for the blogoversary wishes.  I started running again and it made me reflect on what I thought of my body 10 years ago.  And lots of great blog posts to read.  So what did you find this week?  Please use a permalink to the blog post (written between June 17 and June 24) and not the blog’s main url. Not understanding why I’m asking you what you found this week?  Read the original open thread post here.

This is the second part of a two-part blog post.  As I said before, one post simply grew too long to contain everything I wanted to say.  The first part can be found here (containing Takes One, Two, and Three).

*******

Take Four:

Five years ago, I started this blog.  The twins were still babies.  I was so confident that we’d have another child.  I didn’t know how we’d pay the bills.  I wanted to be a writer, but the only thing I thought I knew how to do is be a teacher.  I had a small circle of friends.

The twins are turning seven this summer.  We don’t have that third child and I don’t know if we ever will.  I’m able to work out of the house and be a full-time parent.  I have two books published.  I miss teaching from time to time, but it doesn’t feel like the only thing I could do with myself.  I know people around the world and my friendship circles are like rings, many deep.

There is a saying in DC that if you don’t like the weather, wait ten minutes.

(Yes, I’m aware that other cities also have this saying, but it actually originated in The Washington Post on March 4, 1934.  So there.)

The same can be said about life.  Whether or not you like the figurative weather, it’s going to change.  That can be bittersweet when life is good.  And it can be a huge relief when things are bad.  It will not always be like this.

The same can be said about blogs, which is why I rarely unsubscribe from reading one.  Even if I don’t like the post I’m reading today, I may like the one the person writes tomorrow.  Chances are, if I took the time in the first place to subscribe to the blog, that more interesting things will percolate to the screen at some point in the future.

The same can be said about writing a blog — the stats of today, the comments of today, the readership of today — it will all be different tomorrow.  That can be a bad thing if you’re enjoying a creative period and the posts are flowing.  The readers are coming and the comments are being left.  Because that will dry up, sad to say.  It won’t dry up entirely, but we all have our good blogging days and our bad ones.

But it can also be a good thing if your blog or your readership or your comment levels aren’t where you want them to be today.  There is always the chance for a change in the future.

That is what makes life — and writing — interesting.

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Take Five:

Five years ago, I started this blog.  Every year on my blogoversary, I give myself a word to concentrate on for the year.

Year One (which ended up describing my first year of blogging): Connections
Year Two (set on my first blogoversary): Action
Year Three (set on my second blogoversary): Listening
Year Four (set on my third blogoversary): Tune
Year Five (set on my fourth blogoversary): Own

This year, I thought the word would have something to do with the Prompt-ly list since it is absolutely the project I’m concentrating on this year.

But I had to write a letter this week to someone who means a great deal to me to explain why she means a great deal to me.  I had to take this very emotional thing — love — and put it into words.

In trying to pinpoint it, the best way I could explain why she means a great deal to me is that she recognizes that the world is inadvertently a cold place.  That while we may do caring acts from time to time — helping an old lady cross the street or listening to a friend for an hour — our day is mostly spent in bubbles where we focus solely on ourselves even as we perform tasks for others.

We don’t mean to shut each other out, but we do it (and sociologists could probably explain why it’s actually necessary for humans to do this in order to survive and thrive).  Someone asks us for a favour, and we ignore them.  Someone admits they’re lonely, and we don’t reach out to let them know we’re listening.

So we shut each other out — albeit inadvertently (most likely due to the constraints of time).  At the same time, it is our relationships that make the difference in this world, that heat this cold world.  We notice those moments that people leave their bubble to enter our own because those moments are what makes the difference between people feeling supported and people feeling alone.

Humans are not meant to be alone.

Think about the emails you’ve saved because someone said something that meant the world for you to hear.  Or the times when we’ve gushed about how someone took the time to converse with us or read our blog.  We have such gratitude for human interactions — even the small ones.

Yet even knowing how good it makes us feel to have someone interact with us; to reach their hand into our life and let us know that we’re not alone, we don’t spend nearly enough time doing this.  Perhaps out of survival — we need to focus on ourselves in order to keep moving forward — though I can’t help but think this is counterintuitive.  Wouldn’t we go so much farther if we all spent more time focused on interacting with others since it could come full circle and have people interact with us.  Don’t we accomplish more together than we ever do on our own?

So, my word for this year, for year six (on my fifth blogoversary):

Pop.

As in, I’m going to take this year to try to pop my bubble each day.  To be conscious of reaching out to others and making that connection count.  To engage in conversations.  To help where I can help.

Even if I only increase my time outside by bubble by five minutes a day, that’s amounts to 1825 or over 30 hours of time each year that I am engaged in community by actively interacting.

Will I be able to always pop my bubble for everyone else who needs me to pop my bubble and focus on them?  Of course not.  I’m a human being who needs to practice guitar for at least a half hour each night, do my job and volunteer work, and spend countless hours trying to come up with new and interesting ways to annoy Josh and the twins (please, that takes A LOT of brain power).  So in advance, I’m sorry if you slip through the cracks and my bubble doesn’t pop.  It isn’t on purpose, though I know that’s cold comfort.

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Five takes for my fifth blogoversary.  Five years ago, I started this blog.  And I am so happy that I did.  And so grateful that you are here.

And you better not leave this post bare of comments just because you used up your blogoversary wishes on this first one!  Pop that bubble!