100 Things

by Kristin (kbxmas)
This was posted on my blog, Wanderlust, where it truly is my 100th post.

In honor of my 100th post, I offer you 100 bullet points.

• 100 posts
• 5 months
• 58 sexy flags
• A web of connections across the continents
• new friends, more than I dreamed
• a world opened up before me
• one marriage, lost
• one voice, found
• one future, unknown
• Tonight I sorted through boxes in the basement looking for things to give away
• digging deep into the past and pulling up armloads of clothes and jetsam from days gone by
• I found an old purse and realized it had never been divulged of its contents
• One by one I pulled out pens, lipstick, chewing gum
• Then I froze
• This was my mother's purse
• The purse she had been using when she died
• Here was an address book from 1990
• and she had carefully written in and scratched out my various addresses, tracking me across the country, across continents
• and her last paystub, dated January 3, 1993
• The chewing gum was still soft
• I stood there for a long time
• When the purse was empty I handed it to Jim to put with the rest of the stuff we were giving away
• He handed it back to me, gently, told me to smell it
• I did
• but it didn't smell like her
• Too many years gone by
• Here is what I want
• To hold a mirror up to my children so that they may never doubt
• the incredible light of their own souls
• To never stop writing
• To travel the world, all of it
• To speak my truth, all of it
• And come late June, when the days stretch long and coreopsis and phlox and coneflowers blanket the prairie floor and the sky is a thousand miles wide
• I’m getting in my car and driving to western Kansas
• to Amy Leigh’s farm
• where I’m going to run naked through a field of wheat
• with or without you President Obama
• And that’s not all
• You know that new URL I have (wanderlustlust)?
• I didn’t buy just one
• flaghussy.com
• Uh huh
• And what the hell
• Australiancrush.org
• That’s right
• I’m an org
• Care to donate?
• But on this, my 100th post, I'm thinking mostly about you
• Without you
• all of this wouldn't exist
• and to me you are more than just someone who reads my blog
• because when I fell
• you were there to catch me
• and I’ll never forget that
• People can say what they will about virtual friendships
• and people have
• but I know better
• I know that you are not just a name on a screen
• that you live and breathe and love and hurt and write a piece of yourself into every post
• that you are gloriously imperfect
• as am I
• as are we all
• We are nevertheless blog gods and goddesses
• are we not?
• Expression spilling from our fingertips
• onto pages
• so that we may rest another day
• tame the wild beast
• Well, quiet her at least
• And something in the telling helps us know that we are not alone
• in what we feel
• in who we are
• because we are not alone
• ever
• ever
• ever
• And through each other’s eyes
• we see ourselves
• reflected back
• in all our wonder
• and in that reflection
• we hold a vision of each other at our best
• Mothers, fathers, sons and daughters
• we become our consummate selves
• courageous in the face of pain
• gracious in the face of slight
• We are artists in the medium of life
• dreaming dreams of who we really are
• fearless explorers
• genius creators
• lovers of venusian proportion
• hot bloggy sex on a popsicle stick
• That’s us
• you
• me
• we
• shine