Act your age!

This blog is over four years old now. While it may not always remember to chew with its mouth closed, it ought to remember to flush and wash hands.

Sometimes writing a blog is like having a special bunny and a security blanket. The habit of writing has helped me as my sons graduated from high school, and then from an assortment of universities. It's seen me through the end of my soccer mom identity and into my 93.3333% empty nest.

I've written through the illness and death of my mother, and about the process of grieving. I've tried to distill the daily phone calls with my dad into homemade savory beef vegetable soups with barley.

Blogging has anchored me through the end of a job and the embracing of a new challenge. It's been good for reconnecting with phases in my life that I'd put on the shelf or brushed under the rug.

Blogging has nurtured me and demanded that I take care of myself when other responsibilities or the nurturing of others began to overwhelm me. It has been an essentially no-money-out-of-pocket therapy. Compared to Aetna, Blogger is a real preventive health care bargain!

Sometimes blogging nudges my creativity. Other times it feels great to freely share creative art and teaching ideas with a worldwide anonymous audience. It always helps me sort out my reactions and thoughts to experiences. I've heard there are people who know what they think and feel about events instantly. I'm not in that club. My ex used to ask me if I only experienced life as "pretty colors floating around." Not exactly. I just need time to run the sands through an hourglass of writing or making art to articulate my reaction to an experience.

Don't know when I became convinced that I couldn't verbalize my thoughts to my peers. If the thoughts were piggy-backed with loaded emotions, I was almost paralyzed. It became safer to write, so I had time to self-edit my ideas.

Four year-olds are responsible for their own bodies, their own actions, and the consequences of those actions. They are increasingly aware that they belong to family, a preschool class, and a community, and that they have a responsibility to contribute to those groups in a positive way. Four year-olds recognize and understand routines and sequences. Four year-olds still believe that if they ignore a mess or mistake it will be invisible to others. They love to demand others follow rules, but (like attorneys) don't always believe rules apply to them.

I hope that I have taken responsibility for the consequences of my writing, contributed to my community in a positive way, and cleaned up my own messes. Blogging tells me immediately if i have literary toilet paper stuck to my shoe!

Four year-olds crave attention, but are learning to express that need in ways that do not have a negative impact on others. I still crave comments to my posts, but write for my own enjoyment and improvement.

Four year-olds begin to understand that learning, effort, and becoming acceptable to a community have intrinsic rewards. Thank you and thank you! And all the little people who made it possible!

© 2007 Nancy L. Ruder