Friday's blog was the 76th of the year. That's a pretty good clip. But more importantly, for me, it is one more blog than I posted the entire year of 2016.
There have been bad years in my life. Twenty twenty comes to mind immediately, though part of what made 2020 so bad was August of 2019 and not fully recovering from that before March of 2020 came and slammed us all into what the fuck land. And even though we had a little more tragedy than some, not as much as others, 2020 was bad for pretty much everyone. Or at least odd if it wasn't bad. There is no one you know that would say 2020 was just a year.
But 2016? Yeah, people in the UK and in the USA could tell you that politically those were pisser years, but that happens. And enough people either don't care about things like Brexit or Trump that it wasn't universally bad.
For me though, 2016 was bad. Again, to be fair it started in 2015. That was when I could feel the slide starting. When the darkness was creeping around the edges, but 2016 it hit full force. Enough that on my birthday in 2016 I planted my flag in the sand and said, this far, no further! #48isGreat. I was so tired of being miserable I was going to stop and that was that. And eventually I did, it wasn't immediate, that's for sure.
Reading the end of year wrap up for 2016 and how many of my goals I missed, the ones around writing for the most part, and how I was counting it as a win that I was clawing my way out of the Le Brea Tar Pits and that's all that mattered.
It was a bad year.
When I am on the homepage for my blog it sticks out as a reminder that it was a bad year. Sandwiched between 185 and 140 blog counts 75 sits just petulant and pouty. And the only reason it got that high is that was the year I did a poem a day in April for National Poetry Month. So those count, sure, but they are short. Especially the days I did like three haiku and called it good. Thirty poems, and 45 other blogs. Thirty in April, 3 in May, 2 in June, 1 in July... It was a bad year. I only wrote one blog in November after the election. I mean, if anything should have gotten me writing you would think it would have been that, but instead it shut me down even harder. I had nothing to say about it or to so many people. Except fuck all of you fucking fucks. And that's not really a long blog.
When it's already dark in your head and the world conspires to turn out the lights it gets bad.
So Friday reaching 76 blogs was another marker that I'm no longer there. Even though it's been years since it's been that bad for that long there is always a shadow lurking. I know it. Brent knows it. Other friends know it. And we all watch out to make sure that it only lurks and doesn't settle in. Or at least doesn't hang out for very long.
I keep working on the things that I know make it better. Eat right, work out, get outside when it's sunny. Fill my head with good books and good people. Turn off, block, push away anything that doesn't serve my mental health well. Pull in and surround myself with decent people. The warm cuddly blankets of humanity that protect you and comfort you. The deep philosophical book people. The ones that challenge the way you think and view the world. The comedians who are filled with laughter. These are my people.
And so now I am pushing 80 toward my goal of how many did I say I was going to write again? And why is that so freaking high??
And I'm grateful.
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