BLOG 10TH ANNIVERSARY! BYE-BYE 22!

First, THANK YOU!  If you are reading this, you are among a handful of my friends who do.  👍🏼  As this year ends, I'm celebrating the 10th ANNIVERSARY OF THIS BLOG.  I started with some trepidation.  "How dare I write about my life for others to read?  Who cares?"  But I was motivated by noticing that when I share my truth, others are encouraged to share theirs and a burden is lessened.  My hope that is we can find commonality in human experience together and no one feels alone with their emotions, experiences, and challenges.  I also hope I've been at times funny or entertaining, but I fear my sense of humor is often lost here as some posts I meant to be ironic were taken seriously.  Oops.  And I guess I tend toward a more introspective, "serious" vibe here, in spite of craving whimsy, absurdity, and laugh-out-loud humor in my life.   I looked back at early posts recently and see in some I wrote with more brevity and humor, less angst.  I'll try to get back to that. 

As for readers....I guess I still have some trepidation.  This blog is not "marketed" on any blogger indexes or even open to public searches.  My privacy still takes primacy over being widely read.  (Plus I don't want to deal with trolls and hackers and unauthorized links to porn sites, which happens with disgusting regularity in the blogging community.)  While I fantasize about being popular and famous, I know the competition out there is significant and I wouldn't be in the same ballpark as the truly greats.  So I keep my profile low (and mostly private) sharing with only those on my Facebook friends list (about 125 people) and a few others who have asked to be on an email reminder list as new posts come out.  I do, however, encourage YOU to share links to my blog if you feel like it.  Word of mouth is good.  

I get very few comments here on the blog.  I get more via email and FB feedback.  I treasure all of it.  But mostly I don't hear anything and at times it's like writing into a void.  But I also realize I'm doing this for me as much as for any readers.  It's a personal chronicle of my life that one day may be read and appreciated by my family.  I have the blog printed at the end of each year into a hardcopy paperback book, the collection of which sits on my bookshelf waiting to be discovered by future generations (hello grandkids!).  I tease my adult sons and daughters-in-law that a stipulation of my Will will be they have to prove they've read my blog books to get their inheritance.  They are currently 10 years behind, having shown no interest.  Oh well...they will have homework to do.  (I feel a kinship with Emily Dickinson -- another prolific, mostly private writer, who gained historic stature and esteem long after her death.*)  

So, dear select readers.  I am incredibly grateful to you for reading.  Thank you!  🙏🏽

2022 RECAP:

As years go lately, 2022, on the personal front, was...fine.  (There were some ongoing challenges, but I have a good therapist.)  I wrote about our 50th anniversary, trips to Kauai, Hilton Head, and Ireland as standouts.  Here are a few other highlights on my mind today, but not necessarily the most important of the year: 

For historical reference: Covid continued to rage for awhile with new strains breaking out to get us.   Even so, vaccines work and numbers went down, so mask mandates were suspended.  I don't care...I am still very careful and wear my mask in public.  Nevertheless I got Covid in July (from a family member) and while I called it a "mild case" come to find out it really wasn't, compared to a lot of other people's experiences and according to the notes in my medical chart.  I was pretty sick, but thanks to vaccines I was not fighting for my life -- just miserable for a week or so.  Hub has yet to "catch" it unless he's had such a mild case at some point we never knew it.  He credits his immune boosting supplements.  Maybe...and luck.  Hoping the current winter trifecta surge of Covid, flu, and RSV pass our family by.  Hospitals are jammed again.

We have not downsized yet:  Hub did two huge projects at home this year:  He laid nearly 1000 square feet of flagstone to create a long walk-way and patio behind our house. It took a physical toll, from which he is mostly recovered, but he got it done and it's beautiful.  He also installed landscape lighting which we are so enjoying.  Inside I/we undertook an update in home decor and furnishings, ditching  foo-foo traditional for a more contemporary look and I absolutely love it.  Our home remains a source of toil, trouble, and great comfort and joy for us.

Family is my heart place:  The other comfort and joy is our family.  The adults seem to have an appropriate balance of life-stress and fun in their lives, dealing with demanding jobs, home ownership, dogs, kids, friends and finding joy amidst the challenges.  

The grandkids are getting big.  My nearly 8 y/o granddaughter still thinks I'm the best friend she's ever had and says she loves our "chats".  She is curious, precocious, and insightful, so we do actually have some good talks.  Yesterday she asked me, "Grandma,  I've been meaning ask you a question...what is the meaning of life?"  That was a surprise.  So we talked about that for about 10 minutes.  She's my girl, digging deep into the Big Questions!  

My 13 y/o granddaughter has blossomed into a teen and has moved her BFF allegiance from me to her  group of girlfriends from school, as it should be.  She is still as lovely, sweet, polite, creative, funny, and interesting as she's always been, but I notice the age-appropriate search for her own identity as she has become the quiet observer of all things "adult" at our family gatherings.  She doesn't join her sister in playing and coloring; she sits at the table and listens, joining in with grown-up conversation.  I love watching her grow into herself, even if I feel a bittersweet distancing from her now and again.

Birthdays and the concept of time: People my age (I turned 72 this month) say it over and over -- where does the time go?  The years fly by and it's always a shock to realize some memory of an event that I think maybe happened 3 or 4 years ago was actually 7 or 8!  I read an article recently that explained that one week to an 80 year old is a tiny little portion of our lives compared to a week in the life of an 8 year old.  Also some of us spend a lot of time reminiscing instead of being mindful of this present moment.  And part of the "time flies" feeling is also the phenomenon of 'sameness'.  Our lives become ones of routine and familiarity with nothing novel to mark our days as "different", so it all runs together.  The advice was to seek new experiences, add variety to our interests and to our daily plans, and be totally present to each moment. All of this helps to keep us from feeling like life is a blur and flying by way too fast.

So here we go....Hello 2023.  What ya got for me?  I'm curious.  In the meantime, I'll just keep writing.

At least, that's the view from here...©

*If you have Apple+ TV streaming, watch "Dickinson".  It's one of my fave shows.  I plan to re-watch every episode of its 3 seasons as this winter's binge.  It's a 30 minute per episode quirky, funny, fictionalized contemporary/historical mash-up of Emily Dickinson's life, from which I learned more about her and her  poetry than I ever did in English class.  

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