Tin Anniversary

Inspirational song: Happy Anniversary (Little River Band)

This blog started on April 20, 2013. I had had a miserable time the night before, partly of my own making, partly not, and I had big emotions to work through. I decided to write for my own benefit. I had no idea then just how much benefit I would actually see. 

A week after I started it, Mr S-P left for what ended up being a year and a half in Pakistan, while I stayed home, overwhelmed by our quarter acre "park" in Charleston, SC. Although my heart wanted to be a master gardener there, my body was not up to the task. In some ways, the blog was to keep in touch with the Mr, who has as much amateur gardening ambition as I, with slightly more formal training in botany. In some ways, it was to condition myself to write daily, still believing that it would lead to me finally complete a long form fiction manuscript. I used it to document stories from my life that I thought were interesting, in the hopes that my daughters would have access to their family history. I used it to work out those big emotions I mentioned above. And importantly, I needed to have someone to talk to during that long year and a half I was completely alone. 

Turns out, this diary became my best friend. I enjoyed talking to it casually, openly. I stopped worrying whether I was oversharing. I know I have been, and it doesn't bother me. There have been a lot of times over the last ten years when I really wanted to stop writing forever. Sometimes I told myself it wouldn't be so bad to cut it down to once a week. But, as my stepmother recognized in me when I suggested taking a semester off of college when I was young, if I stopped doing it I would never go back. So I keep writing, day in and day out. A lot of times it is just a record of my day, and I tell myself that is okay. The world of literature and drama is full of soap operas and small vignettes. Somebody keeps reading and watching that stuff. I might as well be one of the producers of the escapism.

Maybe someday I will hit that point that Forrest Gump did, running across the country for the umpteenth time, when he knew he was done. "I think I'll go home now." When I get there, I will let you know. Until then, I will keep on as I began, with stories of my life, my animals, my family, and as always, my flowers.