10 Days and 14K+ Views 😵
Reflections on publishing my essay
Well, folks, my essay, Ditching Perfect For Joy: What a Qigong Master, Meghan Trainor, and a Pandemic Pity Party Taught Me, has been up for 10 days on the Memoir Monday Newsletter. (Link at the end if you missed it.)
According to the stats I got on the first day, at least 14K people have “viewed” it. I don’t know how many have seen it since. Probably a lot more.
I don’t have words for the way my breath catches and my brain freezes when I read that number.
(And yes, I know not all of them read the whole thing to the end and that doesn’t bother me one bit.)
Lots of people have been asking me, “How do you feel?”
It’s hard to pick one feeling:
Excited?
Wow. So many people reading my words!
Daunted?
This may be the most anyone reads my words this EVER. But… maybe I could do something like this again?
Energized?
I have at least 20 essay ideas as good as that one!
But by far the most surprising feeling for me has been Connection.
I can’t believe so-and-so reached out to say they were touched, interested, impacted by my words. That my experience mirrored something of their own.
It’s this connection, the lovely emails and comments on Facebook exchanged with a diverse swath of folks from my life’s path that’s been the sweetest, most rewarding part of the whole experience.
If you were one of those people who reached out, I thank you from the bottom of my heart.
Writing may be for readers, but reading is not by design a communal experience—unless we actively choose to make it one.
I’m loving this journey of finding and building community through sharing our stories and reflections with one another.
And I’m so glad to have you along here in this space where we’re fumbling along through this lovely, lumpy journey called life.
And here’s the link to my essay if you missed it:
Unfair, was an unvoiced thought when I first learned about compromise. Mom had no one but me
and my grandfather to help her with the little brothers that kept arriving almost every year and I wanted to do other things after school beside help...but eventually I learned empathy as well as
admiration for my mom and her strengths...and yes, I did learn the value of compromise and when it was NOT a viable venue for me...the lessons of learning to compromise have served me well throughout my life. :-)
Mija,
I Look forward to Peggy Noonan in Saturday's WSJ and now I look forward to reading you! Congratulations! Everything I have read resonates, especially sitting in my car...
Your grandmother introduced me early to the word "compromise"....Love you mucho, Nina