” You try coming up with an original post every night for 700, 800-plus nights, several of them in a row.” I retorted. “Besides when I spin the wheel I pick a number between 10 and 500 or so. That way you aren’t going to get a recent post, but one that’s a least a year old. It’ll be like reading a new one, only parts of it will feel vaguely familiar.” She didn’t seem convinced but let the matter drop.
As I approach my 1,000 day of gratitude–which if I write daily will be two weeks from today. Part of me wants to drag it out a bit, perhaps skip a day here or there and end on December 31, like I did last year. My sister, who likes round numbers said I should stop a 1,000 rather than pick a particular date to end on. Didn’t I go through this just last year? The truth is that I’m not entirely sure what I will do with myself if I don’t write a blog each evening. I took a long hiatus from it last year–I ended on December 31, started a new blog (Consider This) on January 1 and wrote for a little over a month, and then picked back up Lessons in Gratitude back on September 1. It has been an interesting ride.
I am grateful for developing the discipline that it takes to write every day, twice a day for three years. I stated this blog in June of 2011 and had begun journaling every morning some months later. I believe if I can discipline myself to write every day, to what other uses might I put that discipline? I could sure use discipline when it comes to exercising and treating my body right. I need to apply it in many areas of my daily life, but for now I am simply grateful for having sustained it over the weeks and months and years. We’ll see what I replace it with once I’ve reached 1,000 days of this blog. Perhaps I’ll dedicate that time to other writing projects I’ve left unfinished over the course of a number of years. Whatever I do my aim will be to keep exercising that particular muscle.
I am grateful for having had readers over these months. I may not have a huge following, but you are faithful, and I appreciate that. I was talking with a friend the other day who, like me, is a would-be novelist. She wanted to rededicate herself to her writing, which had slacked off a bit lately. I told her to write every single day, even if it’s simply a journal at first. I also suggested blogging as a way of “putting your voice out there.” It’s imperfect and it’s definitely not the same as getting your novel published; but it is a way to keep yourself writing and the creative juices flowing. I’m not entirely sure what that will look like as I wind down “Lessons,” but we’ll see.
Tonight is not one of my more eloquent nights, and yet I find myself quietly satisfied. I hope my friend who doesn’t like me spinning the wheel finds tonight’s simple post acceptable. I do my best. What’s most important of course is the practice of searching through my experiences in a given day and selecting something in them for which I am most especially grateful. And while I’d like to be deeply insightful, witty and articulate, sometimes it’s simply important to me that I string some coherent thoughts into sentences that hopefully make up a quasi-coherent piece. Thank you, readers, for your patience with those times when I can’t quite say it how I want to say it (or when I fall asleep during the writing and perhaps leave a sentence or to under-punctuated or hanging out there unfinished. If you follow the gist of my words and if those words cause you to pause and think about something in your life for which you are grateful, then the post has been effective in meeting one very important purpose: expanding the practice of daily gratitude out in the world. And that, my friends, is a very good thing.
