HB Coming To Terms

Seven hundred thirty-one days ago (that’s two years, including a leap-day), "Coming to Terms…" sprang forth from my keyboard to the AOL ether-waves. Well, maybe "sprang" isn’t exactly the word. More like clotted, chugged, and coughed. In those early days, posting entries presented challenges—both electronic and verbal—that are now the stuff of distant memory. For the first few weeks, the words sputtered like rusty water from a long-disused faucet. It took hours to compose a satisfactory work, hit the "save" button, and then run smack into that "2500-word-limit" brick wall. Or hit the "save" button and have the words disappear into cyber-limbo, never to be seen again…

I got my first comment on my third entry. I learned how to post pictures. I learned how to post BIG pictures. I posted my first political entry. All those little baby steps we all remember with fondness…

I soon realized I had become part of a community of diverse people, all suffering from the common malady of wanting, or needing, to write. People who loved "journal land" to death, hyped the community to the point of burn-out and disappeared. People who bitched, moaned and grumbled about AOL and finally sailed off for brighter shores. People who found that they really couldn’t handle the strain of putting themselves out there for others to read and comment on, and flickered out like dying flames. People who wrote fiction designed to mock our general gullibility. People who immediately got hooked (raising my hand) on the experience, and just kept plugging away, no matter who read (or didn’t.)

And so I carry on, firing my political salvos interspersed with the observations of a hippie-turned yuppie-turned reluctant entrepreneur, being dragged kicking and screaming into middle age. Thanks to all of you who come to visit, particularly these, who have been my friends almost from the beginning: Mary (Alphawoman's blog), Kat (Walk With Me), Cynthia (Sorting the Pieces), Christina (My Journey With Multiple Sclerosis), Karen (Jukebox Woman), Lisa (Wearin' My Heart on my Sleeve) and Gigi (Lotus Martinis)  Taking nothing away from my "younger" (in journal land) friends (you know who you are...)  I just wanted to acknowledge and thank these ladies for hanging in there with me for so long. 

It's been fun, hasn't it?

P.S. In honor of this momentous occasion, I have officially shortened the name of this journal.  It shall, from this day forward, be known as "Coming to Terms..."