Teardrops and Milestones

My extremely exciting milestone marker today is that in addition to learning yesterday that I have something called a "traffic source" (which is turning out to be a link to a friend you will never meet who liked your blog), I now (seriously, just overnight while I was sleeping) have:

Three followers
Four comments

The comments are incredible. All lovely, inspiring, supportive words by women who have some of the same writing dreams and desires as I. I am warmed and humbled. Indeed, I am overwhelmed. I was still over the moon just from yesterday's one traffic source.

I haven't quite figured out the follower thing, but I will this week so that I can follow the blogs of my followers. Although, I am pretty certain that the third follower may be my sister, who doesn't have a blog. Come to think of it, she is very bright and creative and should fire one up too. She was born with only one very small learning disability that leads her to misuse apostrophes quite regularly, but I have been helping her with that challenge by gently correcting her Facebook posts. If she is the mysterious third follower (I am 99% certain it is her because she figured out how to follow my last blog too) I think that she will be notified when I publish this post.

If that is the case, and you are reading this my dear baby sister, I love you. I know from our skype session this morning that you are having a crappy week. Really, everything will be okay, everybody will be okay. I don't like to see you cry, but even Dr. Phil (I don't care for him, but I know you do) would say you should feel the feelings and just cry.

It is, as we have often noted, a crying shame that when the women in our family cry, we don't look like Julia Roberts looks when she cries. We aren't our prettiest with our faces all red and blotchy and snot flying out of our noses. This is true. But we sure are fortunate that we are able to feel those damned feelings, aren't we? You may be thinking "not so much" at this point in time. And that's okay too.

And so here I sit. Off work for the day on a mental health day because I started crying in a meeting at work on Tuesday, which was really just a strong indicator that I needed a break from what has been a really stressful working year. I am thinking about the women who checked out my blog, and feel like crying with joy because they checked out my blog. My sister, miles and miles away from me, cried this morning but she didn't do it alone because we were on skype. Words, technology, women. I am amazed by the possibility.

I thought blogs were just about writing, but this feels like connection, confirmation, affirmation. Who knew. One of the lovely women who commented on my post yesterday is right on two fronts. It really is only the fear that stops us.

And, secondarily, as she noted, blogging really does seem to be an addiction worth having. At least for today.