And now, Dad is here, too!
I spent waaaay too much time sitting on my butt, plowing through email this weekend. One of my ongoing, hits-every-tenth-card tasks is "clean out my inbox." So, I went back 140 emails in my inbox of 1642 emails, and started dealing with each one. If I needed to do a task, I did it. If I needed to respond to someone, I hit reply and wrote to the person. If I needed to archive the email, I copied the information where it needed to be, and deleted the email. If all I needed to do was read the email, I read it. One at a time, I started dealing with the emails.
After about eight hours of email processing, I came across an email from Dad, so I hit respond and answered his email. Dad and I have been talking more often than we have in years. I think we're up to four hours of phone conversation in the last two months, which is more than the previous two years total.
Needless to say, these conversations make me really, really happy.
I meant to call him today, to continue our trend, but (always the Hodsden "but"), I wanted to continue cranking through my email, I wasn't sure what his schedule was like, and at that point, I don't know why, I wasn't up for talking. Emailing, sure, talking, not really.
It's a funny "but." I want both to know what's going on in Dad's life, and for him to know what's going on in mine, but, the timing was off.
So, I told him about this site.
He replied back before I was done processing the full 140 emails, and his response:
I was reading some of your blogs. I don't see where you get the time to sit
down and do what is literally a diary of life's events, but I like it.
So, Dad, here's where I find the time: the ten minutes waiting for the train, I type notes on my phone (my phone has a full, though not full-sized thankfully, QWERTY keyboard); sometime before bed when I'm relaxing on the couch, I'll post events of the day; if I have a few minutes, I'll write something at work. When it's an important event, I'll stop what I'm doing and just start writing - because sometimes you just need to get it out, lest the thoughts consume you.
In the end, though, I write here because I want to remember what happened today. Each day, I want to remember what happened today and yesterday and the day before, how I felt, what I did about problems I've been facing, how I responded to good fortune, what made me laugh, what made me cry. Not everything is here, sure, some of it I can't write about because it's too painful, or generally socially "unacceptable" to talk about. so I write somewhere else, or post it so that you have to login to read it, or talk about it with friends, friends who know because they listened, they saved my life. For the most part, though, the important things are here. They're here because I've spent far too many years trying to forget, and I'm done trying to forget.
So, Dad, mostly, I find the time to write because remembering is important to me. I write here for me.
But if I can share it with you, too, it's worth it.
Way worth it.