Welcome to my once a decade blog! Some of my posts from 10 years ago are pretty good. I sure was thoughtful and articulate back before mom-brain turned me into someone who forgets to finish her sentences half the
So why am I trying to do this again after 10 years, knowing how hard it is for me to maintain any kind of routine in the chaos of life with two young kids? Truth is, almost every year for the past five years I have written an introductory post to this blog. Maybe someday I’ll post them all and restart this thing over and over for several weeks when I’m dealing with writer’s block, or just being lazy. Maybe this post will also never be published. Just another post to add to the pile in my google docs. However, I hope this is not the case, because this time it’s not just about the writing itch I get every Fall. Last February I had a breakdown. It was not only psychological, but also not entirely physical. It was neurological, at least in part, and it became emotional due to the stress of the symptoms. After thousands of dollars in medical bills, there still isn’t a clear answer as to what happened. But after three different cancer scares over the course of 5 months (the last of which resulted in major surgery and the removal of even more organs than originally planned) I am now in therapy. Therapies. Several kinds of therapies, for all the different kinds of healing I now get to do. And I’m adding writing to the list of therapeutic methods I’m using to try to return to my baseline level of functionality. I know myself well enough to recognize that I need accountability if I’m going to try to make this a routine, and I can pretend I have that in a blog. But more than that, I’m hoping that some of you might even want to participate in this with me. For my birthday this year I was given an affirmation journal. Every page has an affirmation on which you are meant to reflect and offer a response. So far my entries have not been a response so much as an exercise in free association. As I wrote in this journal, I found myself continually wondering how others would interpret these affirmations, and wishing I could hear your responses and insights. What kind of ideas might those insights spark in me? So I decided to take this online where I could share, and maybe have others share with me. But, a word of warning if you require organized, precise and articulate reading material. I’m not good at any of those thing. However, if you so desire, you could raise the quality of this blog with your own reflections and opinions, in which I would be interested, and for which I would be grateful.