2. Josie: always keep writing

Josie and I have been friends for years, through the course of many life events:  the loss of jobs, the loss of a parent and grandparents, divorce, wedding, interstate moves, career changes, life changes.

Josie and I have never lived in the same state.  So through these trials and triumphs, much of our encouragement to one another has manifested in writing.  Every once in a while, she busts out something that I had written to her, something from the past, something I don't even recognize.  I think, where'd you get that?  The answer is, from me.  Really? That was really good! Ha.  The insight and emotion in these will often surprise me.  I think, shoot, I can't write like that anymore.  Where'd that go??

When you don't use the silver, it tarnishes.  When you stop exercising, you fall out of shape.  When you don't speak or hear a language for years, you lose it.  Reminders that in order to stay in synch with something, one must keep doing it.

Josie's gift of glimpses into things written but long forgotten, and her constant commitment to her own writing, encourage me to write.  The more I write, the more I learn about myself.  That's the key.  Once I start, it just keeps coming.  And in that, I learn about who I am, and discover things I might never have gotten to otherwise.

A blog is so cliche and self-important; how presumptuous to expect that anyone is interested in what I have to say.  Yet, it gives me the opportunity to write, no matter who reads it, even if no one at all.  So thank you to the interwebs for a platform, and thank you to Josie for being in my head, reminding me to always keep writing.