why I blog

Let’s get straight to it: I love, love, love to write. Insert crazy wild-eyed love heart emoji here. A little blurb there, journaling here, even work writing crap. I am happiest when I’m slapping words down somewhere, anywhere, everywhere. And so blogging it is. This is the short answer to why I blog.

The long answer? Well, grab a drink, settle in and let’s explore that….

This year has been a bitch in the saddest way.  If you need to catch up, check it out here and here. Grief robbed me of my creativity, my inspiration, my voice. I didn’t want to talk about what happened, and since that was all I could think about, I simply wouldn’t write. Which meant that naturally, I didn’t blog. Lucky for me, I have a huge support group and an irritating tenacity to be happy, so I’m finally coming along swell. I mean it, really! Naturally, now that I’m feeling less defeated, I can’t escape the urge to write anymore. And wouldn’t you know it, I need to talk about what’s happened this year to get to my point, which is a pretty long winded walk through the prairie in my head, so good luck to you now! I’ll try to take mercy on you and hurry it along, OK?

As I mentioned a while back, we lost a tender loved one at the beginning of this year, and it was an unexpected blow that sent us all reeling. Rough is an understatement. My heart hurts just to put this out there again. It’s the second time Joe and I lost a young family member, and while you’d think that that might have prepared us for what happened recently, it certainly DID NOT. You hear it all the time: nothing prepares you for a sudden death and it’s totally true.

Just when I got to a point where I wasn’t crumbling into tears randomly, my sick grandfather passed. While we all saw it coming and thought we were ready for his suffering to end, I didn’t realize I was going to take his death so hard. Suddenly it occurred to me just how much I’d garnered from this man – this crass, sarcastic, hellofaman. It left me wondering what the eff? and where did that come from? and why didn’t I realize all of this before? and on and on and on it went.

I felt like the world was worthless, that this year was doomed to be a pile of rubbish and I grew kind of pissed about it all since I’d been so looking forward to accomplishing all.the.things. in 2016. I think this must be one of the stages of grief, being pissed off, because I suddenly got really frustrated with being sad all the damn time. What the hell was I supposed to learn from all of this? Two loved ones robbed from me before I was ready, in such a short period of time? As an added bonus, a grandmother who can’t remember who I am, let alone understand her life partner was never coming home? It was too much all at once.  I’d think, COME ON already, give me the lessons and let’s move on! I was SO over Sob Town.

One day while driving to work after Grandpa’s passing, I pondered what song would remind me of him now that he was gone. On the radio, a song played called “Seven Years” that’s on a constant loop right now, and since it’s about life and death, I thought maybe that was the one. I switched the station, and this very song was on again.  I figured, well, this must be it.  Life, death, making the most of life.  Out of nowhere, I got the chills and heard a voice loud as day in my head say, “Don’t waste it.”

I wasn’t satisfied with my song selection because it was too modern, and it wasn’t like my grandpa at all. I tried to think about what music he was into, and remembered a long-ago birthday trip to a jazz club with him and my grandma. It struck me that “What a Wonderful World” by Louis Armstrong would probably be the song that reminded me of him from now on. It was settled. I arrived at work and no more than 20 minutes passed before this very song played through the loudspeakers. Mind you, this old jazz song that most certainly does not fit squeezed between the upbeat, contemporary music that plays all day, every day blasted out of nowhere on the loudspeakers.  Dude.

Shocked, I sent a text to my sister recapping this story, emphasizing the voice and wondering if there was a message there with the songs. She responded with “Almost nothing is coincidence. Do you feel like you’re wasting your life?” Yeah, OK. Thanks, sis. And obviously, being frustrated with my grieving process, I did feel EXACTLY that way. I felt like I’d been wasting my ability to write. I’m good at it. People tell me all the time, and I just bury it self-consciously in my belly with all the other doubts I have of myself. (This here is where we circle back to the point, thanks for sticking with me!)

It amazes me how many people are totally uninterested in writing. That most people don’t enjoy the curve of certain letters, don’t get jealous when someone else’s name contains a “z” or a “q” and yours doesn’t – because seriously,  how fun would those letters be in a signature??! I love to write. This is something that is uniquely mine, and I’ve been wasting it. Honestly, what a freaking shame. That voice in my head shouted, “Don’t waste it.”

So the quick answer to why I blog is because I love to write. The long answer? I blog because doing so settles my heart and makes sense of all the things that happen in my life. I blog because it eases my mind to let the words out of my head; blogging releases pressure on my brain. I blog because I’ve known all along that I don’t want to waste a second of this life being afraid to say all the words. The words that shine with happiness, the words that have no purpose. The words that help me figure this life out, even when I’m crushed by their weight. The words that I don’t want to say because they make my heart ache. Those are the most important words of all. All those words need to be written for me to be whole. That’s why I blog.

Editor’s Note: An Update.