For What Would You Risk Everything?

I have been engaged in a conversation about what sort of "thing" this blog might be.  This blog... actually, these blogs:  The Heron Clan, The Swan's Heart, and Herons Transforming.  Together, they chronicle a good chunk of the last eight and one half years.

I think that the whole pile of words are a journal.  I think these blogs have been, and continue to be a place where I pour out the chatter inside my head -- so that it doesn't drive me totally crazy.  I think that blogging has given me a voice, but also a vehicle to connect with other people who might share the journey with me -- who might understand and offer the hand of friendship; make life a bit less lonely.  To me, these blogs seem like the verbal version of a photo album.  They have recorded moments.  Lots of moments.  I can go back and read here and there, and to me, the various pieces are like beads on a string.  This moment and this moment and this moment...  spiraling back into memory.  Actually, without the various bits and pieces that comprise the 1930 posts that have been written here, many of those old, old stories would have vanished.  I can go back and look, and honestly, find myself surprised that I wrote THAT.  Memory is a funny thing.

I am not convinced that it all goes together with enough coherence to constitute a "story," but if it does in fact have some unifying thread, perhaps it is the exploration of what it might be that is worth risking everything for.  Because... that is what I did so many years ago when I took the leap and moved east, leaving everything that was familiar; that was "home," behind.  Because... that is what T did when she opened up her life and her relationship to let me in.  Because... that is what Tom did when He envisioned a path that would allow our love to be in a world that insisted it could not be.  There were no guarantees in the beginning of all of this.  We took a chance, risking disaster for the possibility that we might find our way to something amazing.  There were no guarantees when I chose to stay here and divorce my husband.  There were no guarantees in the aftermath of my hysterectomy, and no guarantees for the outcomes of the sundry joint replacements we've survived as a family.  There were no guarantees when Tom and T opted to undergo bariatric surgery.  There were no guarantees when we confronted inevitable aging and the various illnesses that, one by one, took Tom's and T's parents from our lives.  There were no guarantees when we confronted the changes of Tom's retirement.  There were no guarantees when we were swirled into the mire of addiction and recovery.

The truth is that there are no guarantees in life.  Some days are "good," and others are "bad."  At least that is how we might evaluate the ups and downs that are part of the business of living day by day.  Every moment is a new opportunity, and a new risk.  Some risks can be calculated, evaluated, and managed -- most cannot.  Some paths are, perhaps more predictable, and maybe safer than others.  I suspect that the way we've done this does not fall into the category of "safe."  We've taken our chances, and we've taken our licks.  I don't know if we've "triumphed" exactly, but we've endured.  Maybe we've done more than just endure.  Maybe we've come through stronger and better than we would have been otherwise.

So ... it could be that the answer to the question of what this blog IS in the literary sense is that it is one woman's answer to the question:  "What would you be willing to risk everything for?"

swan