Remembrels

I wrote my first post here on October 19th, 2009 — “Dreams”. Seems like an unusual amount of chaos and disconnect and friendship and love and loss and complete and ultimate connectivity has taken place in the year since I hit the publish button for the first time.

I remember sitting, trance-like, at my dining room table looking obsessively at the blog stats — it reached 27 that day. I was completely blown away. Twenty-seven people who I didn’t have to force to sit down beside me and look at my blog had read something I wrote. Someone even commented (okay, so it was my niece but I didn’t force her to do it — not really). Many things have changed since that day a year ago — many things have rocked my corner of the internet, my little corner of the universe.

I’m not one of those people who says, “I’d do it all over again and not change a thing”, I would change many things. I envy those who can look back on a year of their life and not cringe and wish for a do-over — isn’t that what learning and evolving is all about? Don’t we all have moments we wish never happened?

I also look back on this year and think about some of the truly beautiful people I have come to know and the truly beautiful experiences I have been a part of. There was dinner get togethers and lunches out. There was dancing at concerts and talks in coffee houses. There was discussions of books and laughter at movies. There were new people discovered and old friends found. There was a calm peace, a deep breath, and moments of leaping.

I’ve often wondered if I said too much here on First Pages — if I crossed the line in what should have stayed buried in my thoughts and what I decided to spread across these pages. I’ve read wonderful comments about how I said something that you couldn’t or wouldn’t — and I wonder… why? I’ve read comments that questioned my character. I’ve read comments that made me laugh and made me cry. I’ve read your comments and felt my soul fill up with the love and curiosity that I hope they were meant to have. And, on occasion, I have sulked away from this blog questioning my own intentions.

What I’ve discovered about writing, as an art form, in this last year (and please don’t confuse that statement with me thinking this is an art form here — merely a thought process) is that once a reader reads the words… the words become theirs, the meaning becomes theirs, the interpretation becomes theirs. And that’s how it should be.

I thought this would be a good opportunity for me to point out some of the posts that I completely embraced and made my own heart ache when I pushed the publish button, these may not have been the posts that received the most views or the most comments, but they are the posts that I go back to… when I need.

• For The Love of My Dogs
• Closure
• Gone Fishing… With Dad
• Smilings My Favorite
• A Simple Connection
• The Chain Reaction of Balance
• It’s Everything
• Setting Yourself On Fire
• I Want Out
• Not Pulling You Back

I think, in life — in blogging — in living each day, it’s important to look back occasionally. When we look back, we can see where we are going so much clearer. The past can sometimes cloud our thoughts and fill us with the want of a do-over — I guess, for me, I’ll never get that do-over — and actually, I’m not sure I want it. I will take a “let’s start from here” though.

I’m working on establishing a schedule for posts. I will (attempt) to post on Tuesday’s, Friday’s, and a weekend post. Of course, the joy of writing for fun is that you never know when the fun will want to be released. Also, I plan on putting up some poetry occasionally and I will continue to try my hand at flash fiction. I hope you stick around — you never know what might come out on these pages!