The frenzy

Near death experiences do funny things to the human mind. They seem to awaken a once-dormant part of the brain and sets it into a mild frenzy- of getting things in order, in the event that death should come knocking again. I've spent the past several weeks catching up on private journaling and scrapbooking, and finally printing my blog after 13 years. Perhaps even more interesting than the post-near-death-experience-frenzy is the personal evolution I could see as I read my blog posts. They started out light and superficial in 2010 when I started my blog, brushing on the funny things that had happened throughout the day. I had forgotten so many of the stories and little antics of the kids. By the time I got to my last blog post, it was surprising how much has changed throughout the years. How much I've changed. I've become a more serious person, less social, a bit of a navel gazer, but hopefully more honest. I miss the woman I used to be in those lighter times, but am proud of all she's overcome throughout the years.

As I read back on Hengxin's adoption blog posts, most of which I've unpublished, I cringed a little, worrying that I overshared parts of her personal story. A friend recently posted something on Facebook about the line that's drawn where one person's story ends, and the other person's begins. That is, perhaps, one of the greatest challenges of blogging- to identify and honor that fine line, because often, they feel so interwoven with our own story. I've had to remind myself to be gentle and forgiving of the woman who posted what now feels like oversharing. She was doing the best she could at the time.

Perhaps the biggest lesson I learned reading through so many years of journaling and blogging reminded me of just that- we're all just doing the best we can at the time.

A moment of peace from a few weeks ago that I wanted to remember