DAY 48 - 10,000 HITS

You should get in 10,000 steps every day. You can go 10,000 Miles with Mary Chapin Carpenter. You can listen to 10,000 Maniacs (“These Are The Days” is my personal preference.) There is a group building a 10,000 year clock – to represent long-term and innovative thinking. 10,000 is the square of 100, and the square root of 100,000,000. Edison said of the light bulb that he’d discovered 10,000 ways not to do it. I have already lived almost twice that many days on this earth, and have about that many days until Retirement.

   And today for me: 10,000 hits on my blog. I really don’t do much more than write it, publish it, and post it on my Facebook page. But somehow parts of it have been read 10,000 times.

   That is incredibly humbling. I started this blog 2 years ago (after my divorce) to push myself to do more writing – but I was haphazard at it at best. Once in a while I would write something, but only made 15 posts in the first year – then nothing for the next year. And, well, 2014 has been unusual year for me – and honestly, I didn’t start blogging until my husband of 5-weeks left me.

   I have always wanted to be a Writer. Even as a little kid I thought I’d grow up to be a Magazine Editor. Or maybe a Librarian. But I have always loved Words. And especially since I spent most of the past year living out of a suitcase in hotels around the country, the internet became my lifeline. And blogging became my Therapy. Blogging makes me think about things, and forces me to find the words for the feelings, and demands that I come to a conclusion.

   Blogging allows me to Let Go. Once I get a topic on paper, written out and polished up to publish – there is a completeness to it. Even if I don’t find closure, there is a sense of resolution to it – and that allows me to Let Go, even if only of that one tiny piece of my broken heart. And I’m pretty sure that 10,000 is the number of pieces my heart has been shattered into – so maybe there will be 10,000 blogposts to resolve each one of them.

   But 10,000 is also the number of Hopes and Dreams I still have ahead of me. 10,000 is about the number of friends I have in this world, and 10,000 is the number more I hope to gather. 10,000 is the number of things I am grateful for, the number of blessings I receive every day, and the number of silent prayers in my heart constantly.

   Thank you for sharing this Journey with me. It has been a healing process for me – and to have 10,000 moments that I have been able to share this part of my heart with you is probably the most healing part of all.

DAY 41 - ALWAYS HAVE A BACKUP PLAN

Actual sign from my mantle.
Gift from my dear friend Abby Hawkins.

I was goofing off this afternoon, and just decided to go back and read an old blogpost (about my brother) – and all of the sudden:  my entire blog was gone. The entire blog – GONE! I totally freaked out!

   Deep Breath. Maybe it’s just on my phone. But no, when I went inside and logged onto my laptop – it just wasn’t there. Panic. Fear. Tears. Because – I didn’t have back-up copies of those posts. It’s not so much that I think that my words should live forever, but that I expected the internet to be a stable source. I mean, my hard drive might crash – but the internet is forever. Right?

   Trying to remain calm, I did a bit of research to see if it was just hidden from view. Clicking, searching, clicking some more. After a few minutes, I found out that an unscrupulous character tried hacking my account – JERK!  So, after verifying that I am me AND beefing up my password, I was able to restore my blog. (And if you’re reading this, then you’re probably glad too!)

   Usually I am a bit of what you might call a Digital Hoarder. Typically I make backups and create versions of documents as I progress – and save them as I go. It’s a habit I developed 20 years ago when I was writing 80-page proposals – which often got Chomped by a computer at a crucial moment. When that happened (and back in the 1990s it happened a lot), I could just revert back to a previous version and pick up from there.

   And I’m especially careful to have copies of all of my photographs on both CD and an External Hard Drive. And I often make backups of my backups – just in case. I’ve had one too many computers die on me to go more than a few weeks without an update. And now with Internet resources like OneDrive and DropBox, it’s so easy to have backups of SmartPhones, photos, files, etc.

   So this afternoon I took the time to create an archive folder for my blog too. And I ran a backup of my laptop (even though my current backup is less than 2 weeks old). And I also ordered a printer cartridge so that I can print of my blog each day – because, yes, I still believe in having paper copies too.

   Because one of the things that I have learned in life is to always have a back-up plan. My life has certainly not turned out the way I expected – heck, this YEAR hasn’t turned out as expected. For that matter, today didn’t turn out as expected. But that’s OK, because I have a backup plan – and part of that plan is this 83-day Journey. 

   What is your backup plan?

DAY 30 - WHERE DID ALL THESE PEOPLE COME FROM?

Although I started this for myself, I’m surprised at how many people are reading my blog: over 3500 in the past month, and 8000+ ever. When I look at Facebook I’ll see a post that has maybe a dozen “Likes” and maybe a comment or two – and then go look at the Stats on my blog and see that over 200 people have read it.

   Don’t get me wrong – I am incredibly flattered. I started this 83-day Journey for myself, but between the Comments, Facebook Messages, and personal conversations I am learning that there are quite a few people out there that are silently reading it. And from a few of the messages I’ve received, it’s helping others too.

   As a kid, I used to press my ear against my bedroom wall – and early mornings and late nights I could hear the tap-tap-tap of my father typing in the Kitchen. Dad was always a writer. Born into a newspaper family, he grew up with ink in his blood – and watched his father and grandfather work at getting the paper out together every day. When he was age 23, Dad bought out his grandfather’s share of the Preston Citizen – and was the youngest newspaper owner in Idaho’s history (at least at the time). Even long after he sold (due to WWII), he continue to write – Red Cross, United Way, Kiwanis, and pretty much any organization he was involved in benefitted from his gift for writing. He was the editor of the Cal-Nev-Ha newspaper for Kiwanis for over 20 years. Even into his 80s, Dad worked on his Personal History – and a novel he’d always wanted to write, that he passed along to me to finish. And it’s literally in our blood, because among my uncles and cousins, there are at least a dozen of us that write – both personally and professionally. I guess it’s just what Roes do.

   And in today’s society, we are readers. We are Information Junkies. Even within Facebook, I think my newstream is filled with as many Shared Links as personally posted photos and updates. Nobody uses an encyclopedia anymore – we just Google it, and often end up on someone’s blog. Sometimes just for a random bit of information or instruction, sometimes we follow blogs of specific people we like or are interested in.

   We have become Internet Voyeurs. Without even leaving our house, we can be Peeping Toms, looking into the windows of people all over the country, all over the world. Through their blogs we sneak-a-peek through their curtains and see what it going on inside. And as someone who lives in a glass house, I have admittedly left the curtains wide open.

   Sometimes I write something that I expect to get read, like Divorce vs. Annulment – because it was something that I couldn’t find information about. Sometimes it’s something that I know is a bit of a “Hot Topic” like Women and the Priesthood  – which I want to express my opinion about. But sometimes it’s just my personal ramblings about my messy desk or playing the piano – and still they get read. And there is something about knowing that people are reading that pushes me to continue to write, to try to be funny or eloquent, to push myself as a writer more than I ever have.

   That’s really why I started blogging – because it pushes me beyond my own limits. I’ve been a rather faithful Journal Writer for many years. Many (if not most) of my journal entries never get finished – but I just stop when I run out of time. But with blogging, it has to be thought-out and complete. I write a rough draft, and I go back and edit it (usually a couple of times). I take some time to find a photo or quote (or two) that I think adds to my own words. It’s a finished and completed Writing – hopefully with a cherry on top.

   Because, in reality, it isn’t just a few hundred random words that I’m putting out there – it’s a part of me, maybe the deepest part of me. Writing is looking deep within, and finding some small piece of my soul to share with the world – and polishing it and shaping it. For most of my life, all of my writing just got shoved in a drawer or tucked on a shelf. But this blogging world has allowed me to put my heart out there. It’s scary – rather terrifying – to do, but also incredibly rewarding too.

   So I do it, every day, for a whole month now. Putting my heart on paper, and waiting – wondering what people will think. For the most part, I have no idea what people really think. These Internet Voyeurs stalk around silently, so I have no idea who they are or what they think. But I am grateful for the positive comments from friends, and for the reading by strangers too. And, because I have shared this piece of my soul with you, that somehow connects us – makes us friends. And more than the thousands of clicks on my blog, I’m grateful for the hundreds of new connections that I have out there in the world.

I will write until not a single word 

remains in my soul … 

until every story in my heart has been told … 

until my mind’s well of ideas is bone dry … 

and even then I will write on 

because writing is not just something I do 

but part of who I am.