1000 Etherical Moments

So here it is. My 1000th post.

Nothing like the advent of a milestone to shut down forward progress.

After posting my most recent entry last week, I noticed that my next offering would be Number 1000. I got it into my head that this was quite an achievement, and that I should celebrate it with a truly worthy essay.

Which was all it took to bring my newfound writing mojo to a screeching halt.

I suppose I shouldn’t beat myself up about the lingering changes wrought on my life by five years of bondage to a 5000 pound gorilla. That time of my life was just…a mess. It wasn’t ALL bad, but it was bad enough that I have to dig deep to unearth any good memories associated with it. It was a long downward spiral of missteps, failures and slaps in the face, interspersed with one or two level platforms where I might have rested, laughed, or even attempted a pat on the back before the world tilted and the descent began anew. How could that not change one’s world view?

Once again, I’m undone by the possibility that some aspect of my “new” life might become a habit, or, worse yet, a responsibility. Something I have to do, every day. I cannot go there. Still. So when it seemed like even the shadow of a cap-gun might be leveling at my temple—the idea that I should write a well-constructed, thoughtful piece on the event of my 1000th post—I froze.

And really, when you come to think of it, what’s so great about one thousand blog posts? Any blogger worth her salt would have reached that milestone in about three years. It’s taken me eight and a half. Plus, many of those early AOL posts transferred here when AOL went tits up, were garbage. Pictures, jokes, memes…more of the kind of stuff that is now relegated to Facebook than real blogging.

Still, it is the history, isn’t it? It’s a timeline of the changing face of internet society. Sure, if I had posted 1000 pieces in three years, it would attest to my prolificacy as a writer. But in my case, the landmark seems to point more toward longevity. Through thick and thin, feast and famine, satisfaction and desolation, I have hung in there. For more than eight years.

So even though I am beset by a temporary (I hope) emotional handicap that makes it very difficult to do justice to the occasion, I am not unaware—or unappreciative—of the achievement.

And now that I have this out of the way, I can go back to writing any old crap. Or not.