If my blog were a person, they would be nearing the age of adulthood. Tomorrow begins their final year of childhood as they make their way through 365 days to their 18th birthday. It is my 17th blogoversary.

Last year I said:

Any time I think about not writing, I think about how I have this account of what I was thinking and feeling and going through for the majority of their life. It’s over 5000 posts and 84,000 comments, and we often scroll back through random months to find old stories.

I am grateful to have the record. I think more and more often about stopping this site or slowing down the pace. Though I also know that slowing down the pace is the first step in stopping altogether. And I love having this record. I love being able to look back and re-read old stories. It’s the push and pull of wanting and not wanting to stop. Both at the same time.

Thank you for reading the blog — either for a long or a short time, for one post or over 5,000.

We went to the beach for my birthday. It’s a family tradition, where we go through the same well-worn steps, year after year. We almost didn’t go because of poor air quality, but the numbers looked okay when we woke up, so we set out for reading on the sand, French fries for lunch, and carnival rides to cap the day.

Over the years, we’ve narrowed it down to two rides. The first is the Haunted Mansion, which is a low-budget version… a much much lower-budget version… of the Disney ride. I love it, mainly because it hasn’t changed since I was a little kid. There’s a point where the vehicle takes you outside to a balcony overlooking the teacup ride. I always think about when my father got the operator to stop the ride when I got scared, and he ran on as it slowed down and scooped me out of the teacup where I was screaming. And then there are years of memories in the park with the twins. Squeezing into the children’s Ferris wheel with them, the mermaid boat ride, and too much money wasted on the horse-race-water-squirting game. Eras pass before my eyes every time the wooden ride doors open, and you jerk onto the balcony for five seconds before you disappear inside again.

The other ride we always go on is the carousel. We’ve had different riding formations over the years, but I usually get an outside horse. If possible, a dark brown one. The twins took two horses right behind us.

Round and round, the park spinning by. There is the helicopter ride — the first big kid ride the twins went on without us. And the swings that the ChickieNob wanted to ride non-stop when she was little. And the bumper cars that the Wolvog measured himself against the sign each year, waiting for the time he could drive in the car with us. Waiting for the time he could operate the car without us.

And then, like always, the ride started slowing down. And I started sobbing. We slowly spun by one man with a look of horror on his face at the masked, grey-haired woman sobbing on the merry-go-round. But I didn’t want the ride to end. I never want the ride to end; I always hope something will happen and we’ll get an extra long turn. But it never does. Two minutes is what you get. Eighteen years is what you get. Management doesn’t accept requests for extra time, even from crying women.

I think one of the reasons I love the Magicians trilogy so much is that Lev Grossman clearly shares my feeling that the worst part of adventure books like the Chronicles of Narnia is the time when the adventure comes to an end, and the children are booted from the magical land a la Alice in Wonderland. I’ve loved this adventure so much. It hurts my heart to feel it slowing down, knowing that we’ll be asked soon to give up our space and make room for the next riders.

Not sure what #MicroblogMondays is? Read the inaugural post which explains the idea and how you can participate too.

*******

I just finished reading Bad Summer People, which is a little like White Lotus set on Fire Island. You know someone will die because the book begins with a dead body. But you mostly forget something will happen because the people are so terrifically awful that you’re sucked into their drama even though you’re not really rooting for anyone to win.

I felt guilty enjoying it so much because the residents of the very real Saltaire (the town fictionalized as Salcombe in the book) were upset by early versions of the book satirizing Fire Island life. I’m unsure if any characters or situations were based on real people or events, though I’m assuming from reactions that the answer is yes.

*******

Are you also doing #MicroblogMondays? Add your link below. The list will be open until Tuesday morning. Link to the post itself, not your blog URL. (Don’t know what that means? Please read the three rules on this post to understand the difference between a permalink to a post and a blog’s main URL.) Only personal blogs can be added to the list. I will remove any posts connected to businesses or sponsored posts.

In honour of Father’s Day, I give you this great article that appeared in Elle of all places back on Mother’s Day. It’s about how people won’t just allow the person to be a child-free woman. She is called “a mother of words” or asked if she has “fur babies” or is a “plant mommy.”

She touches on it but doesn’t delve deep into the other side of this story. Can you imagine someone asking the new guy at the office if he has fur babies? Or is a plant daddy? No, you can’t because it doesn’t happen. Men may be asked if they have kids, but no one then spends time trying to point out to them that Father’s Day is for them because they give birth to new ideas.

Unless the person calls their pet their fur baby (something I wholeheartedly endorse and the way I think of Beorn), please do not call animals in their house their fur baby. Let us enjoy what men worldwide get to enjoy; a quiet acceptance of their choices and circumstances, as if they are the captain of their life ship.

Measure of Love is on sale for 99 cents from now until the end of the month. 99 cents. Even candy bars cost more than 99 cents. And in this case, you get a whole story. 6 to 8 hours of entertainment, depending on how quickly you read.

It has been a long time since my last book, and I’ve been playing with a new story for a few years. I’ve put it aside because it is so hard to wrap my brain around anything right now with the twins leaving. But maybe this is the kick I need to pick it back up again.

*******

Stop procrastinating. Go make your backups. Don’t have regrets.

Seriously. Stop what you’re doing for a moment. It will take you fifteen minutes, tops. But you will have peace of mind for days and days. It’s the gift to yourself that keeps on giving.

As always, add any new thoughts to the Friday Backup post and peruse new comments to find out about methods, plug-ins, and devices that help you quickly back up your data and accounts.

*******

And now the blogs…

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

• “Pronatalism and Anesthesia” (Finding a Different Path)

Okay, now my choices this week.

PocoBrat asks if grief makes you mean. She is becoming irritable with people after the loss of her dog, and she writes, “I don’t know if some B.S. detector switch has flipped in my brain or if it’s business as usual and grief has nudged out extra emotions making them conspicuous to me. Either way, I’m finding it difficult to live with this version of me.” Grief burns through energy, and patience is an action that often requires a lot of energy. Sending peace of heart.

Lastly, Infertile Phoenix writes about feeling your feelings. She talks about what happens when you don’t let out your feelings. And she explains: “If I frequently cry quietly… If I occasionally cry loudly… If I use my words to tell a person why I am mad, sad, or disappointed… If I journal honestly… If I blog vulnerably… It gets out. The feelings get out. And they don’t stay stuck.” I needed to read this post this week.

The roundup to the Roundup: Measure of Love is on sale. Your weekly backup nudge. And lots of great posts to read. So what did you find this week? Please use a permalink to the blog post (written between June 9 – 16) 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.