What Does This Milestone Mean To Me?

When I started this blog my goal was to force myself to write everyday as writing had been absent from my daily life for too long after being so prominent for years. While the goal was daily I honestly didn’t have much confidence that I would be able to keep up that page especially given the fact that I had set certain parameters for each post. However, unlike in the past, I am glad that I didn’t restrict myself to a specific topic or group of topics even though I knew from the beginning what subjects would play a prominent role.

That was 500 days and 500 posts ago and not much has changed in this blog. Frankly, I am amazed that I have been able to keep up the pace and, for the most part, find different things to write about. It is with that I mind that I have become more aware of the things and situations around me, I have paid closer attention to things in my life that would have in the past just been another day, and on a few occasions I have forced myself to do other things, go other places, and think about different subject so that I might have something interesting to write about.

While not everything has made it onto the blog both by choice and forgetfulness, these 500 posts have been a great way to record and communicate all that is happening in a very simple life. This brings me back to a question that was recently posed to me in a LinkedIn genealogy discussion. I had posted one of the many genealogy related posts to a group and the response from one member of the group, after the obligatory thanks for sharing this story, was something along the lines of “it is great that you are learning about your family history, putting the pieces together, and writing about them but what are you going to pass down? What will your children, grandchildren, great grandchildren, etc. know about you and your life?”

With everything that has happened since I wrote the first word of the first post, this comment solidified why I keep writing. While these posts serve as a means of winding down and for me to remember all that I have done, they are also something to pass down. After all, it is one thing for future generations to know that you existed, it is something much more to know who you were, what you did, what you believed, and what you stood for. So I guess you could say that these 500 posts and all that follow are merely a means to add color, shape, and general character to my leaf on the tree.