The Roaring 400

So something happened the other day that completely escaped my notice until now.

My last post was number 400.

400 Posts on this little blog here, over the last 3 years.

Holy wow, you guys.

Maybe it's not a big deal at all. Maybe it's just further evidence that I talk a lot and if there's no one around to talk to I'll still find a way to make sure everyone knows my opinion on everything.

But it feels big.

This little journal here has transitioned quite a bit from what it started as in 2009.

Initially, it was place for me to just write.

I've always been terrible at keeping journals.

I lose them, I forget about them, they end up discarded into piles of old books I never read anymore or shoved into shoe boxes at the back of my closet. So many empty pages left, all the entries months apart.

But I thought for some reason an online writing place would be better.

I could make it pretty, personalizing it with pictures and lay outs and all kinds of things. I would never lose it, and I could come back to it even if I'd forgotton about it for months, and it would never hold my absence against me.

At first no one read it.

I would get maybe 5 hits on a good day, and most of those I think were from me.

At some point, those numbers started climbing and people I'd never told about the blog started asking me about it. Saying they read it, they check it every day, when am I going to post again?

I had no idea that there would ever be a point where people would purposely take time out of there day to come hear me ramble and complain, rant and cry.

But for some reason, some people do.

And in a strange way, I'm grateful to those people.

I feel like you all know me, more intimately than I might have ever let you if this blog didn't exist.

There have been things I've posted here that I might not have said had we been face to face with each other.

Maybe it's for the same reason that it's easier to tell someone how you feel in a text or an email than in a phone call or over coffee.

You have time to put the words together just the right way, then you hit publish, walk away and forget about them.

You don't experience the same vulnerability of the listener's silence. Waiting to see how they'll respond, the pressure they must feel of needing to respond the right way.

I can tell you all my secrets and you can respond or not, and it's ok.

I guess in some fashion this blog is teaching me how to let people in.

And, this may surprise you, but that's actually hard for me.

I've always hidden in plain sight.

I've kept people at a distance by being the person who says things other people won't say, being wildly outgoing, overly social, and giving the impression that I'm not in the least bit shy.

But I am.

It's just that when people think you don't hold back they think you've let them in.

And then they don't pressure you, they don't dig for details, they don't ask you questions you don't want to answer or make you reveal things you don't want to show.

This blog is the place where I can be vulnerable, without being scared.

So, 400 posts later, I want to thank each and every one of you.

For listening to all my secrets, watching my life and my often fumbling attempt to live it, unfold.

For watching me fall and never once leaving hateful comments or sending me private messages that say "I told you so"

Of all the hundreds of hits I get in a day, not one of you has ever made me feel bad about the mistakes I've admitted to here, or said things like "Not for nothing, but, who the hell cares?"

And because I know there's even one person in the world who reads this, it gives me a reason to write.

Which I think, of all my sham talents and failed attempts at success, writing is the one thing I get right.

And all of you make me work at it.

Try harder at it.

Practice it, and over all just sit down and do it even when it hurts, because I know it will feel better when it's over.

I appreciate this blog, and I appreciate each person who reads it.

Thanks for being my silent best friends, and letting me tell you everything.

Because, we all need someone we can tell everything to, without being afraid, don't we?