Contest, Day Three: We are asked to write the post on our minds when we first began blogging. Day Two we were asked to change our title and tag, which I chose not to do. The book I wrote following the 18 month period I spent with my parents’, their illnesses, and their ultimate deaths months apart, would have been that reason. Writing helped me process thoughts and feelings, keeping them distinct and, at times, distant until I was ready to deal with them. Time, distance, and a constant refining of myself into the present (which I resisted at various points) was a continual, painful, and precious experience. I learned a great deal about life while dealing with death. It’s a hell of a teacher.
Death is underrated. We are a society that cherishes youth, foolishly ignoring the benefits of age. The saying: youth is wasted on the young, is rarely understood by the audience it’s intended to impact, and it’s only with the perspective of age that we realize this. As a young person I hated that statement, considering it a personal attack on 20 something’s, not wishing to be cognizant of all we did not know. There’s an alchemy that takes place as we age (if we are lucky and if we work at it) that refines us, shapes how we (chose to) see the world, and behave within it.
With blogging, as with living, life encompasses more than weighty and profound experiences, much as those grab our attention. The every day, with silly annoyances, aches and pains, joys of great finds at HomeGoods or Fairway, exercise that enlivens, friends and family that sustain, sadness that comes in waves like the tides, is there too. I am grateful for blogging, more grateful still to my son Jesse who suggested I try it and told me to figure out how to do it when I asked him to set it up and looked at him like he was insane when he said no. Blogging has given me a creative outlet, followers, and on and off line relationships that have touched me. Isn’t that the point.
