When I first started blogging I spent lots of time responding privately to comments.
Instead of replying in the post’s comments I’d email people and share in a more intimate fashion.
Doing otherwise felt awkwardly presumptive (who on earth makes it a priority to return my blog comments to see if I’ve answered a question/chimed in?) and, even back when I wrote mainly more about fitness, the questions and shares rarely demanded prescriptive answers.
Commenters weren’t asking about sets & reps but revealing personal tidbits which, to my mind, necessitated non-public responses.
All that mishegas to say I’ve spent more time answering messages, emails, and comments sparked by last week’s post than I have in all my years blogging.
Men, women, newlyweds, long-time marrieds, people with children, partners without kids–the sense of struggling to stay together while wondering if that’s the right choice sparked a point of connection.
I guess it’s true what they say about social media being the highlight reel of most people’s lives because I’ll readily admit your collective responses surprised me.
I didn’t realize how many of you are where I am (alas metaphorically. literally would be CRAPPY!).
Your willingness to share, normalize and lessen-the-lonely after one of us has stepped forward did not surprise.
I love that about our community.
The other morning I watched as Charming bounded awkwardly down a trail (early risers may have seen me Periscope his ambles).
Lolloped was the word which sprang to mind to describe his movements.
To move in an ungainly way in a series of clumsy paces or bounds.
That’s precisely what I’m doing these days and, before last weeks post, I felt as though I were the only one.
I now know otherwise.
I now see how the very word “ungainly” may not capture what we’re doing as, if we are all doing it, how graceless or inelegant can it really be?
It’s simply the two bounds forward and one big, clumsy step back of life.
<3