Thirty-One Posts

Last year in the month of November I committed to writing thirty blog entries in thirty days. This was admittedly a way to give myself a jump after the death of my mother in October. This year, with the anniversary of this loss looming, I’m starting the new challenge of writing thirty-one posts in a month.

Day one of the month I missed the very first post. I can say that it’s because I was in Vermont with no service or that I have an incredibly nasty cold, both are true, but I still could have done it. Excuses, even when they are real, are still no good.

For last years challenge I missed plenty of days and was left at the end with a lot to make up in just a few days. I had someone telling me that I should be content with having written more posts than normal and to just stop. I was told not to be so hard on myself to write so much in the final throws and I would do better next time. Well I didn’t listen to that; I wrote every single post that I had promised. Three days of sitting in my pj’s and facing delirium, writers block, pets who were determined to sleep on my keyboard or barf on my coffee table, and random fits of giggles didn’t stop me. When I hit that goal I knew I had done right by my mother and more importantly myself.

I have been afraid to set a goal that large for a while now, but I feel ready to take on more.

I’m sure in the upcoming weeks I will have countless reasons to skip a day or put off writing, and that’s okay. As long as when Halloween rolls around with that scary 31 on the calendar I finish my thirty first post by midnight. I missed day one and I will have to write multiple posts on another day to make up for that, but at least I didn’t let that first hurdle stop me. I could have moved the whole thing to November and excused myself by saying that I would make it an annual event, but I won’t take that road. I want the month I had first told myself I would do; the month that is longer, filled with more fun fall distractions and the month with the most emotional charge. Bring it on.

Look at that, I just finished the first post, bedridden with a cold and everything. Thirty left to go.