When I first starting blogging about three weeks ago and began to find other blogs to follow I saw many posted thank yous at around this time of a blog’s life and I thought how lovely that was.
What I didn’t realise is that this need to acknowledge the generosity and comradeship of the blogging world seems to rise of its own accord at about this time as you realise – I think with genuine surprise – how special this collaborative and supportive environment is.
At my work there is a lot of talk about collaboration and collegiality, but probably not many actual examples of it. Here it seems to rise out of the nature of the connection. Writers and artists and philosophers and dreamers sharing their thoughts, creations and beliefs in a way that is mutually supportive and inspiring. It’s truly amazing and humbling. Life had tended to make me a cynic about a lot of things, but this is so refreshing, I too have that need to say ‘thank you’.
For me, one of the most striking benefits of blogging is that it is providing a very real sense of expanding my horizons. And this made me realise how much, through my own choices, I’d limited them. My work – which I will never outline in any detail here because I want it separate to this world – is very intense and often political – in the office politics sense. Last year, I realised, the total of my life was my work, with some socializing with friends occasionally and otherwise watching DVDs and reading. It was a comfortable life, but a narrow one. And in its own way that was stressful and I didn’t even realise.
Now I find my day is book-ended by blogging and reading and sharing with other bloggers. It is something I look forward to at the beginning and ending of each work day as it takes me outside of that narrow world and puts me in something that has so much more meaning. And on weekends I have even more time to spend in this atmosphere.
And I find this makes me care less about the machinations of my daily working life, and that is a wonderful, zen-like feeling!
This has brought a balance to my life I didn’t even realise was lacking. So something that started as a re-birthing of wish to create is, in a sense, re-creating me. Maybe that is the ultimate alchemy of creation itself.
But it couldn’t happen without YOU – all the people kind enough to read my work and generous enough to share of yours. The amount of talent I’ve come across in just these past three weeks is staggering! So let me join the chorus of appreciation and thank you all for your support and friendship.
Words can’t really express what it means to me – even though I’ve just spent almost 500 of them trying!! 🙂
helenvalentina 
awww wonderful post. ((hugs))
Thank you! ((hugs)) right back at you! 🙂
Please continue sharing your work, Helen! You are a terrific writer & I enjoy looking for your poems each day! 🙂
Thank you, that means alot. 🙂
I feel exactly the same as you have so well expressed here! It truly is amazing, and has taken me right out of my tiny world too!! My television is gathering dust, there was never much of interest to me on there anyway! And it’s so refreshing to read work that doesn’t have hidden agendas like a lot of magazines and newspapers do, here it’s just people being people and all the lovely things they have within themselves! So keep up the good work!
Suzy 😀
Exactly Suzy, I agree…even my DVD collection is starting to gather dust and feel a bit neglected, which I never thought would happen! 🙂
Great post! I’m a new blogger and have found that what you say here is SO true. 🙂
Love your writing.
Thank you! Love your writing too! 🙂
Pingback: Woo Hoo Two! | Blog It or Lose It!
Hello! I hope you don’t mind, but I’ve nominated you for the Liebster Award. You can visit http://jrosenberry1.wordpress.com/2013/02/01/woo-hoo-two/ for more information. There is no obligation; you do not need to answer all the questions if you don’t want to, because I know there can be a lot of work (!) in putting together all your responses. Just know that I enjoy your blog and your encouragement.
(Sorry to hit you with two awards … again, no obligation, okay?)
Thank you so much for thinking of me, and all your encouragement. I very much enjoy your blog also. I fear time may get the better of me this weekend (I have to spend hours in the hairdressers, for example, which just seems to eat up so much spare time…what we do for fashion, eh?) so I may not be able to take up the nomination and do it justice, but I do very much appreciate it. Very, very generous of you. 🙂
No worries! As I was completing the award I was thinking, “um, I’m honored, but ….!”
Have a great weekend!
Well, I have definitely been blessed by both your writings and your comments on my blog. Being new, I know it means so much to have that comment come your way. It is like Christmas morning! lol Thank you for all your words, and for sharing your heart with us.
Right back at you! 🙂 I very much enjoy reading your poetry and prose, always so lyrical, honest and heartfelt. 🙂
Thank you so much!
Newness is always scary. You start out not knowing what to expect and then there’s a flood of love. I so hear what you’re saying. Isn’t it a gorgeous life in a community of artists? Whatever life may throw at us, we have this, and there’s always more and more. I love your work. ^_^
Hi Elise – thank you, I agree. And I love your work too. The artistic community is, as you say, a delight. 🙂