Two million

This evening, this blog passed a fairly momentous benchmark of receiving two million page views. That's kind of a big number. Allow me to do some navel gazing in honor of it.

I never dreamed when we began this blog in 2005 to keep friends and family updated about our first adoption that sixteen years later I would still be writing it. Who would have thought? I didn't even think I was a very good writer and happily off-loaded the blog updating to J. for the first year or so. It just goes to show that writing is truly a matter of practice. 

It's also a little surprising to look back and realize just how much a part of our family this blog has become. It has chronicled the past sixteen years of family life in a way that just a photo album couldn't manage. In discussions of what happened when, it is the final arbiter of any arguments. It has recorded incredible joys as well as the lowest of lows. Today, not only does it continue to keep family members in the loop, but also adult children as well. It has become such a part of our lives that there are a couple of family members who will check in if I haven't posted in a few days just to make sure everything is okay. Barometer, photo album, memory book, time machine. It feels as though it has done it all.

This unvarnished-ness has been very purposeful on my part. I never want to imply that we are perfect nor do we have everything figured out. No one does, regardless of what their social media feeds look like. It is okay to be less than perfect, to have bad days, parenting failures, messy houses, and periods being convinced that nothing is ever going to be good again. It is not okay to live only in those darker places because there are plenty of good and joyful things around us, even in the mess. I truly hope that anyone reading here takes that away. Life is not either/or, it is both/and. The trick to living successfully is to accept the less than perfect, knowing that perfect is not achievable, but also to take great joy in what is good. Good and perfect are not synonymous. 

The other thing I find so interesting when reading through past posts is to realize exactly how much I have changed over the years. I know I've written about this before, but my younger self was so sure I was right yet so afraid that I wouldn't live up to that rightness. It was actually pretty exhausting and didn't leave much room for joy. My children, in all their hurt and pain, have taught me so much... have changed me so much. This blog is also very much a chronicle of that slow and somewhat painful process of change that I went through. There are some past posts that I very much cringe to read. There is a part of me that just wants to delete them, but they are all part of the story, so I leave them there. I often feel as though I am a walking poster child for Maya Angelou's quote, "Do the best you can until you know better. Then when you know better, do better." It's actually all any of us can do, isn't it?

Could I ask you a favor, my dedicated readers? I know all of you are comment-shy... I have the statistics to show that as well. I often find it an endearing quirk among my readership. But sometimes it's nice to know what people are thinking; that I'm not really writing into a vacuum despite those two million page views. If this blog has made a difference to you, could you write a short note saying so? It doesn't have to be long, even just, "Keep writing," will suffice. Over the past year or so, with everyone growing older and the well of cute children posts drying up, I wonder if I should keep writing. I'm happy to keep writing as it provides a place for me to sort out my thoughts about things, and I realized long ago I am most definitely not a journal-type person. I guess I sometimes idly wonder if people want to keep reading. 

Since this is veering over into some rather maudlin territory, I'll stop here. But I do want to add one last thing — Thank you to my readers. I know blogs are a little passé these days, yet a significant portion of you check in regularly. You don't have to do that, and I appreciate it very much.

[Don't expect a post tomorrow. We are heading out early in the morning to go to the Midwest Horse Fair and won't be back until late. B. has come to watch the animals for us so we can get away for the day. People are excited to go but not so excited at the rising early bit.]