By July 2017, more than three years after I had written my Eighty-Four Years speech and a year and a half after I had turned it into a handout (see Resource Page), my next project to create a “back table resource” was still my next project. I had not started creating it or writing anything else either. I was waiting to start other projects that were aimed primarily at leaving my children and extended family a legacy of short stories, anecdotes, and poetry centered around five main areas: faith, family, workplace, military, and mentoring. I started getting angry as I realized that instead of the “unchained existence” that I had gotten so excited about at the end of the Eighty-Four Years speech, I had essentially sidelined myself; I had taken myself out of the game. It was as though I was waiting to be done with this new aggravation, arthritis, before I could focus on anything else. While the medication was helping I had really hoped that God would have miraculously lifted the whole thing off me by now. It is still with me as I write this and while most days are better than others, there are those unpredictable ones where I am not able to do what I thought I was going to do that day.
I have known for a long time that the process of externalizing, either writing or talking to someone, has the effect of bringing out whatever was inside. So many times over the years I have learned about something I didn’t know I was dealing with or wanted to say by writing or talking with someone. I often write just to see what’s there. My eldest daughter challenged me one day to start putting some of my stories and poetry online, in a blog.
I had been looking for some way to get back to writing on a regular basis, writing as a habit. While some of the resources I was planning on writing were for a select audience and not planned for the general public, I had to admit that the blog idea had merit. Instead of waiting for the arthritis to leave me alone so I could get started, even on a bad weekend I could squeeze out an article or two for people close to me who were waiting to see if there would be any new stories that week. And before I actually figure out what the big picture is going to be, there are lots and lots of short stories and anecdotes. My family and friends have heard quite a few of them yet there are always more that they haven’t heard. I decided to take the challenge to get one or more articles or short stories out every week, being quite alright in the knowledge that I have no idea where any of this is actually going to end up.
The mission for this website is not yet clear but I will keep putting articles out here until what I’m doing starts to make sense to me. In a rock-paper-scissors sort of way, bite-sized trumps sidelined!
…and when you turn to the right hand, and when you turn to the left, your ears will hear a voice behind you, saying, “This is the way. Walk in it.” Isaiah 30:21 (World English Bible)