A note to my readers on the occasion of my million view milestone.
People become bloggers for many different reasons. They want to express themselves creatively. They want to make money. They want to become influencers.
I began blogging to save my mental health.
It all began back in 2009 when I published an essay in the Globe and Mail entitled: We're Living the $10 Life. In the essay, I wrote about the serious downturn my life had taken after a bitter divorce that left me reeling. Even though I had recoupled with the wonderful Scott, we were barely making ends meet.
It was a terrible time for both of us even though we had enjoyed successful careers in the past. When we met, Scott was living in misery. He'd taken a buyout and left his career as a CBC cameraman to pay off an abusive ex-wife. I was a freelance speechwriter, and I had lost most of my income because I was a Liberal living in Stephen Harperland.
Together we were raising three teenagers, cannibalizing tropic fish and a gaggle of dogs.
It could have been a sitcom if it wasn't so sad.
The article turned out to be a big hit for me but it was highly polarizing. Many readers left me warm and thoughtful messages while others left comments that were extremely hurtful. I was called every name in the book: a loser, a complainer, a waste of air. If my life was so bad, why didn't I kill myself?
That sort of thing.
I didn't take it personally. In fact I realized I had hit a nerve.
So I decided to try out this blogging thing, and immediately set up an account with Blogger. That was 1,200 posts ago.
Blogging is invigorating. It involves unlimited navel gazing. It illicits powerful hits of seratonin at all times of the night and day.
Looking back, I cringe at my own self-involvement, and often mean-spirited postings. I was angry and hurt and sometimes frankly mentally unwell at times. That is why it is always good to go back and delete some shit. Which is the other upside of blogging -- it's not like being published a newspaper some place -- you can always delete it. (Though of course, not really.)
Back at the beginning, I found it so freeing to write about my life, its ups, its downs. Poverty. My life as a single mother. The constantly evolving puppy pile.
What began as a daily rant has evolved into something a bit more gentile. I got tired of listening to myself. It was dragging me down.
And so I began to write more essays about the people in my life including my friends Roger and Jennette who allowed me to record their very strange life, including their gruesome health challenges. Chronicling Jennette's terrible journey through cancer changed me forever, and pinged the hearts of so many readers. She truly was an inspiration to me and remains in my heart today.
Six years ago, I was invited on another terrible journey being taken by my cousins John and Cindy whose daughter Ashley disappeared in Salmon Arm after a fight with her boyfriend. The Simpsons allowed me into their nightmare where I rode shotgun through all the searches and heartaches.
I stopped blogging altogether for months at a time because I was so damned depressed that I couldn't write. Maybe it was Trump, maybe it was just the whole injustice of the world around me. Maybe it was because I couldn't save the day, make things better. People died. Children remained unfound. Killers were still on the loose.
And then I got a phone call from John Simpson in early December saying that Ashley had been found and her boyfriend was in jail charged with her murder.
As sad as the ending was, I realized that my blogging about Ashley had made a difference. For better or worse, I realized that my blog had gotten the attention of the media, the cops, the community.
Being a pain in the ass wasn't a bad thing after all.
And so I made a turn, and a decision.
I was going to do for others what I did for the Simpsons. I was going to help those families out there looking for their loved ones.
In just the past few months, I've already written about Pamela Jones, the retired school teacher who was murdered 10 years ago in Salmon Arm. Her killers have never been brought to justice, and her son Lance continues to fight for victims' rights.
And just this past month, I decided to take on the case of Katrina Blagdon, the army veteran who is still missing in St. Catharines, Ontario.
Someone has to speak for the missing. Someone has to be a pain in the ass of law enforcement and the bad guys who seem to get away with hurting our women folk. Someone has to give the media, and the government a kick in their lazy butts, and remind them that every missing person is a wife, a daughter, a mother, a husband, a friend.
And that someone is me.
I want to thank all of the readers who have supported this blog over the years, who took the time to click on the link, who took even more time to leave me a kind note.
As this blog reached the milestone of one million readers early this morning, I couldn't help but feel grateful for the kindness of friends and strangers. My readers are awesome.
And there's something else.
Believe it or not, blogging saved my life.
Now it's time for a party!
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