For All Eyes to Read

Recently I received a call from a friend. Hi, Amy! She was almost in tears.

Somehow she accidentally found herself reading this very blog. She had never read my blog because she didn't know I had a blog. She was on Twitter (a site to which I belong but never use) and she clicked something and wouldn't you know it, here she was.

The post at the top of the blog that day just happened to be the one about my dad. Which was ironic because Amy's dad had been through surgery that very day. So you can imagine the emotions it brought out in her.

Amy and I have known each other since our little guys were nine or ten months old. We both enrolled in the same "mommy & me" class. We clicked right away because Amy is one of those insta-friends. You know the kind I'm talking about.

The other day she paid me the best compliment a blogger could hear. She said she was addicted to my blog. And she asked if it was OK that she keep reading it.

"Of course!" I told her.

She proceeded to tell me that she also has a blog but that her husband is the solo reader.

I know where she's coming from because I used to be like that.

When I initially started this blog it was because I was so terrible at keeping a baby book. I wanted to jot everything down so that someday William (and now Lucy) would have a place to go to see what it was like when they were just a wee thing.

But since then it's evolved into so much more. It's become my sanity.

In the beginning I didn't really want to share what I was writing. I was afraid of what people would think. I didn't want to be judged for my writing or my thoughts or both. It's a scary thing to write down how you really feel and then release it for the world's eyes.

But there's also something exciting and liberating about it as well.

After a few comments and emails rolled in, I realized a funny thing. Well, a few funny things actually. First, I realized that people really did like what I was writing. They thought it was funny and cute and relatable.

The second thing I realized was that I really did want people to read my blog. For every comment that came in my heart did a little flutter. And it still does! To me it means that not only are people reading my blog but my writing actually touched them enough to take some time and comment on it.

Then I took a huge leap of faith and published my blog's address on both Twitter and Facebook. It's easy to have total strangers read your stuff but it's something else entirely to have that one guy from way back in tenth grade getting in on the action.

But then I get a comment or an email or a phone call, like I did from Amy the other night, that makes me realize that my writing can be so much more than just a place to drop all my thoughts.

If you've ever thought something, anything, while reading a blog, it means you should comment. No matter how small or insignificant. It means the world to the writer. And here's a little secret: A blogger doesn't care if you comment anonymously!

And if you've ever written anything, I challenge you to open it up to the world. You never know what you'll get back in return.