Untitled [on purpose]

I’ve been reading lately.

There’s no plot, no way to imagine what the setting is, heck, the characters aren’t even very clear.

But this person has written about some themes and feelings and deep reflection.

She’s written about love, lust, hate, friendship. Finding lovers, work, new homes and adventures. She’s described the smell of her Sunday mornings and the feeling of the first sip of coffee. The heat from the asphalt as she ran, pain in her body and voices in her head. There’s been winters and summers. Too much rum and just enough weed. Tears, sleepless nights, hopes and disappointments.

There are sunsets and sunrises, blueberry pancakes and cotton fields. She’s experienced abundance and having nothing. She’s given the shirt of her back, had hundreds of thousands of dollars in the bank, and faced shopping at the food bank; all in the same year.

She’s lost, while gained. She cried, while happy. She grieved, while feeling free.

She’s had readers from across the globe (I actually started listing them, but this is easier)

Over 200 countries and 19,615 views.

I know that isn’t significant. I know that’s small compared to those ruling the blogger map, so to speak. But, when I think about this, it mean that person in Iceland, or Rwanda, or Honduras, the 151 times China has read or the 241 time Australia has dropped in or, most recently, the 213 times Poland has read her words, that means she’s reaching people she’ll never meet. Readers, like me, that read to reflect, to cry, to think about my own life.

Reading what she has experienced on the beaches of California or the walks with her children to school. The promises made under the sheets or stars, whispers and giggles and soft touches. The pain and connection of being human. The hurt and loss of what life was supposed to be, replaced with the unknown of rewriting her story.

Over a decade of keystrokes and early morning musings, overcome by the urge to purge words, hoping they may move someone across the world to think about their own situation. Her life exposed in the confines of a laptop screen, strangers reading and wondering what may come next.

I’ve read all her words because I’ve wanted to write and I didn’t know how to follow my trip to Graceland. I didn’t know what I wanted to say about where I am and what I’m going through right now. But maybe, I just need to say I’m proud of all the versions I have been in this space.

The new mom, the happy wife, the diligent employee, the rebellious friend, the attentive and caring lover. The forever writer.

I’m proud of everything I’ve done and seen. I’m incredibly proud that the feelings I had when I wrote some of these passages are no longer as fierce as they once were. I’ve lost people I have loved. I have been fortunate to love people and let their love into my life. I continue to fight every day to feel whole. I give those around me my everything and I still hope to find that person who will fight for me.

But… every day is hard.

Realizing you have less life left than you have lived, is hard.

And reading the woman I was when I started here, I wonder where she thought she’d be 13 years later. I don’t think it’s where I am now. But, that’s for another time.

So, I’m here to thank you dear writer. You have given me (us) reason to write again. Reading all my words has reminded me that love, connection and honesty are still my most important things in life.

And if I have just one other reader other than myself tonight, that love, connection and honesty have been fulfilled.

Axo