According to Blogspot, I've made 142
posts... in a row. No breaks. No missed weeks. In. A. Row.
I think that, through the vagaries of
Blogspot's counting system, that number has actually gone down more
than once, but I'm not sure and even so... Them's a lot of words.
And, as I've said before, it's your doing- good, bad or indifferent,
there wouldn't have been as many if it wasn't for you with you
flippin' complements, your flippin' encouragement and your flippin'
obvious interest in what I have to say.
By the way, the use of the word
flippin' in these instances is derived from the manner in which the
word is used in the Central Lowlands area of Scotland where I grew
up. I've been led to believe this is the same way the word is used
here on the far East Coast of the United States. Small world, ain't
it?
It's no secret that I began writing
this blog as part of my own way of dealing with the shock of being
diagnosed with cancer. I saw it as an extension of the journaling I
have done off and on through the years; a way of putting down these
words
in the hope that they might lead me to those
words
that, in the end, better tell what I'm reaching for, better explain
how I'm feeling.
And
that's true, as far as it goes. But, here's a true truth (and this is
where you come in)... if I was still writing
it principally for me, there wouldn't have been 143 in. A. Row. I
believe I wrote something similar after 56 or so, and after 112 or
so, and may well write the same thing again should the string
continue.
A couple of paragraphs back, I wrote about the shock of cancer, and
if you've had it, regardless of the type, you know that shock is the
word. There should be a bigger, more horrifying word, but there
isn't, so shock it is. But this type of shock is hardly the exclusive
property of people with cancer. I know you've all had a diagnosis of
something or other that has shocked you- pregnancies (planned or
unplanned), heart ailments, brain ailments, and I can pretty much say
from secondhand experience, broken bones.
But
once the shock period passes... The writing issue reflects what
happens in real life. When first diagnosed, people flock to your
side, usually bringing food and offers to do anything
they can to help. This phase is crucial for all of us when we're
broken, regardless of how... and we need to let people help. It's
selfish not to, even though you, like us, were probably brought up to
automatically decline any offer of help.
But then, people wander back to their own lives, their own
challenges. They're no less willing to help, the offers just become
unspoken. The burden of getting help shifts to us because now we have
as..as...ask for h...he...help.
You still have the issue, whatever it might be, but much of the time
the only person you have to talk about it with is you, and usually in
the wee hours of the morning. Look, my wife doesn't like it much when
I talk about being alone with my big brain in the middle of the
night. She wants... no, expects, me to wake her up and talk about it.
But, since she, too, has to live with my cancer every waking moment,
I'm unwilling to wake her up just so she can listen to my jumble of
unformed thoughts, budding fears and a visit to the crypt of messes
that is my brain at 3 am. Man, there are spiders in there! Big ones!
So this creates, for me, the perfect opportunity to skip a week in my
writing, especially since so many people read what I have to say in
the Kennebec Journal and Morning Sentinel where other needs sometimes
preclude them from running my column. They have been absolutely
wonderful about sharing my work with you and have played a pivotal
role in reaching my overall goal: bringing hope and encouragement to
as many people as possible. Sometimes, though, there are more
important things they want to share with their readers and that makes
perfect sense to me.
I have always written a blog, regardless. Again, if I skip once,
skipping twice becomes easier. I was shuffling up to another of those
decisions this week. I haven't been feeling well, at all, and... what
harm could it do to skip a week? Then I get this voicemail (I am
paraphrasing some, but never around the intent): “...Sorry you
haven't been feeling so well, but there is a lot of support for you
out here, even though we don't know you, have never met you. Please
keep your blog going.” There was no name. No phone number. Just
that heartfelt message.
So... 143.
There are a variety of versions of
the story that gives this blog its name. The pony is the constant in
all of them. A man is on his way to a party when he comes across a
young boy shoveling ass over tea kettle at an enormous mountain of
manure. The man asks the child if he wouldn't rather go with him to
the party than shovel all that poop. The kid says, “No way man.
With all that poop... there must be a pony in there somewhere
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