January 21, 2009
The day this little corner of the internet became my own.
Fifteen years ago I started blogging. I had no idea what a blog was, I just knew I had one. It has definitely been a learn as you go proposition and fifteen years later I'm still forever playing catch up, still sharing snippets of life in the season I'm living, still doing what I can to mark the moments and bloom where I'm planted.
Fifteen years ago I lived in England. My girls were both university students (in the US) and hubs was working, traveling here there and everywhere with his job.
that was then
Fifteen years ago I hopped on a train to London any old day of the week. I ate Indian curries on a random Tuesday and met friends at the pub every Friday night. I hiked through fields of rapeseed, woods abloom with bluebells, slipped through kissing gates and across public footpaths in the land of tea and scones.
I wondered where we'd go next? When we'd go? Did I want to go? What would life look like for me on the other side of the pond? America. America had somehow become the other side of the pond.
Life is funny.
In fifteen years I've gone from paying college tuition to buying Christmas presents for grandchildren. Hubs retired and we built a home on a lake, something we always imagined we'd do but were never quite sure we'd get there.
We did. We're here. In a completely new season of life than the one we were walking through when hubs first said "you should have a blog". I'm glad he said it. Glad he knew to say it. Glad he pushed me to write down some of the myriad thoughts in my head. To record life in real time. To view through the lens of now the life I lived before I had a blog.
When I look back at the pieces I've chosen to record here I see with perfect clarity all the things I didn't know I didn't know. I've lived and loved and learned a lot in fifteen years. There have been massive changes, blessings large and small, growth, goals met and others set aside to make room for new dreams.
Heart aches and heart fulls because that's life in every season.
I'm glad God unfolds the future one day at a time. Glad we don't know what we don't know. Grateful for love and memory and grace for the moment we're living now.
Cheers to fifteen years, and who knows? There might be fifteen more.
Cheers indeed to your fifteen years. Happy you are still blogging. Hope you have a good week ahead!
ReplyDeleteOne of my favorite things about blogging is looking back on the "things I didn't know that I didn't know." Isn't it funny how perspective can change over the years? I clicked back on one of your older posts, and was wondering if your girls went to ACS Egham? It looked familiar in some pictures, and that is where my kids went for the 3 years we lived in Sunningdale. Love the bluebells picture. Hope you have a wonderful week.
ReplyDeleteThe best thing about blogging is being able to look back, closely followed by friendships that never would have happened without the blog. I look forward to those 15 more years!! Happy blog anniversary, Joyce!! Hugs!!
ReplyDeleteThis post is so beautiful and touching. I'm so happy to know you through blogging. Happy Anniversary!❤
ReplyDeleteFifteen years is awesome, bet it doesn't feel like fifteen years I have had my blog 17 years but it doesn't feel like that it has been that long, I hope you have many more blogging years ahead of you
ReplyDeleteHappy blog anniversary. You definitely have a way with words x
ReplyDeleteI love this post! I'm so glad you have a blog!! Cheers to 15 years!
ReplyDeleteCongratulations on 15 years of blogging. I went back and checked and it appears I started blogging just a few months before you. I'm so glad we met (I believe it was probably through the Random Dozen) I've loved watching your family expand and you all have had so many wonderful adventures. Hope both of us will be here for another 15 years.
ReplyDeleteHi Joyce, thank you for being patient with me, letting me email you my comments. I had to get my tech husband on the job of figuring out what was going on. I just could not figure it out. It was something to do with our security and cookies. I do not understand the cookie thing at all.
ReplyDeleteThank you for cheering me on to figure this out. ;-) Hopefully it all is good to go.
Take Care,
Carla
Happy Blogoversary! Blogging has been a fascinating learning and growing experience for me too, and even though I probably spend far more time at it now than I should, I can't imagine my life without it and the friends I've made all over the world through it.
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