No More Tears, Or The One Where I Didn't Cry While Writing It

Participating in a writing experiment.  Again.  500 Words a day.  This was day 1's submission.

At the end of December, I decided to blog EVERY SINGLE DAY in 2017.

I even had a starter kit....it was a music-themed 30 day blog-prompt-or-possibly-challenge type thing.

I wrote the first day's prompt on the 30^th of December, crying almost the whole time. I then posted a link to the blog on my Facebook, and the responses came rolling in. Teary-face emoji, comments about me making people cry – again! – and lots of hugs.


 I appreciated it. I wrote from the heart, and I cried while I was writing it so I had, clearly, managed to affect my readers. Good, right?

Except the blog post before that made everyone cry.
  And, yes, I creid while writing that one as well.

Again, pats on the back for being able to express my gut-wrenching anguish in a way that, clearly, resonated with my readers...and by readers, I mean my beloved friends, because I am pretty sure they are the only ones reading it, even though my “stats” page insists that my blog is being read in Russia (Democrat conspiracy, I bet!), France (chuh! As if!), Turkey (I ask you!), and even Costa Rica (seems legit). So, maybe it wan't that big of a deal that they were crying along with me. After all, they have all borne witness to me trying to keep my daughter and myself sane and whole in the wake of her father's sudden death.

I looked back at every blog post I had done since he died, as well as the 2 before, and realized that SEVEN out of the (shamefully low number, but I had MAJOR stuff going on!) eight blog posts I did in 2016 resulted in people telling me they cried, sending me virtual hugs, and teary-faced emojis flying around my FB profile.

Seriously. Suck. It. Up.

Which begs the question....Is what I am churning out gripping, emotionally-laden stories that resonate in the hearts and mind of my readers (friends), or have I become a professional (online) basket case?

I mean, if all I am is the blogspot version of a trainwreck, should I continue to keep writing?

Surely, I can fall apart and cry on my couch without involving anyone else or spending 20 minutes scouring the interwebs for photos of Ryan Gosling that I haven't posted before, right?

I decided to step away from the laptop until I got my three-crying-jags-a-day self under some semblance of control, which I was able to do with the help of a friend – holla, JB!!! Love you, girl.

Once I gained some real perspective and closure and stopped crying all day, I decided to revisit the prompts.


The next prompt asked for info about the parents. Nope, nope, alllllllll the nopes.

Can't. Take. Any. More. Sad. Face. Emojis.

I decided to wait for my muse to show up, and THEN I would start blogging again.

Did I know it would come in the form of this group? Nope.

I am so happy it did, though.

Happy face emoji.

*sigh*