See ya 2016

I am having a hard time with knowing what direction to take this blog in as the year ends and a new one begins.   There is a part of me that is just so despondent on a political front, seeing the wars around the world, the general state of too many poor children who do not have basic necessities, the attack and continued rage people display at others differences.  It is hard to not want to write the blog as someplace to air these feelings - to share with others that feel the same - and maybe even to have it reach a place of dialogue with people who are on the other side of the spectrum.

I started this blog and I am still eternally grateful for the friend who started his, then stopped, who told me that there is never a reason not to try it.  It was a place for all those things that bind us, a place for shared experiences and most of all a place to add a little humor to day to day occurrences that are in many ways universal.  Motherhood, friendships, lovers, loves or just plain how the hell do you get through folding laundry fatigue - or is that just me ?

As I started to think of writing the last blog of the year I went back through the blogs I have written and with quite a bit of feather fluffing on my end (yes I made that expression up - yes you can use it even if it is in jest) I love that I have over 22, 000 reads.  I mean I never imagined that it would reach that.  Then I looked at who reads this thing anyway, besides my super awesome friends and especially a core group of loyalists that I never tire of hearing from when they tell me they liked one of them.   It is people from all over the world - I mean ALL over the world, beyond my circle of friends.  I have gotten the best notes from people who I never met who connected with something I wrote.  I have gotten a few less than loving notes too but to those I responded too and somehow we did not need to be uncivil, in fact they led to some good dialogue.

We accuse each other, rightfully so, in an age of fake news and memes as truth of also having a social media presence that is an echo chamber.   This is so true - after all how else can we feel as brilliant on some days as to see others cheer on our beliefs, because hell they believe them too.  The downfall to this is that we stop hearing from the other side,  we stop the dialogue and even stop - you know interacting except with people like ourselves.  What a miss this is - I live for learning different views, information, expanding my little corner of the world and even when I don't agree with someone I find a good, robust, heated discussion is great - the polar opposite of the advice on don't talk about politics, religion, sex, money.  Talk about all of it because if we cannot be civil with one another we are losing the opportunity to be more than we started out.

So where am I going with this blog in 2017?  I am going back to those things that unite us.  My most successful blogs, based on reads, seem to confirm that I am right to think we share so much more than we don't.  That the world has more in common than not.  That we all lose it, then breathe deep, when say a child leaves a pen in their pants and you get ink on clothes and have to wash them again.  That at that moment the idea of stabbing said child with said pen is a fleeting thought.  That you get most of it out with hairspray, dabbing (no not the kind all these kids are doing) and OxiClean.  That you tell said child he is lucky that you took the deep breath and that you wanted to stab them with said pen and boy aren't they lucky to have you for a mother who did not do that.

I am going to focus on things that may seem trivial but isn't it the day to day, more mundane things that most of us share and just want to survive?  Things like that most of us are sad at the death of celebrities that we like even though we know that well we do not really know them.  Maybe they are the soundtrack to a portion of our lives. An actress who rocked a gold bikini while chained to a lecherous blob and did not lose her sass.  We mourned the passing of a man who was a Prince then was a sign then was just simply a trouble person who happened to be a brilliant musician.  We mourned the passing a boxing legend who wasn't always a nice guy but was always willing to stand up for what he believed in, his strength in his convictions of fair play made him more a world champion than those gloved boxing hands.

We share sorrow at loses on a personal level.  Are touched by kindness from others and in the end are parents, lovers, spouses, friends, children and people who just want to laugh, scream, kiss, dance, sing and be present.

In 2017 I am going to take back my optimism and bring back the blog to being the place where a mom born in the 20th century is just trying to raise awesome kids for the 21st century.  Yeah I know I will have the occasional rant because hell it is who I am but I love the saying that you can change the world one random act of kindness at a time.  What could be more kind than welcoming 2017 with those things that bind us for the future ???

Thanks for reading and please keep doing it -- goodbye 2016 you sure have been memorable.

Happy New Year