The data geek in me had a wonderful weekend crunching numbers.
This blog was born just shy of three years ago and contains 245 posts with 5,496 views from 3,239 visits and a total of 811 pages. This is precisely the opposite of viral! The blog is private with limited readership, so the numbers are alright.
Let me begin with a deep bow to everyone who reads my posts!
Until this weekend, I had haphazardly saved the posts in Word documents. On Saturday, I brought my catalog up-to-date, created a table of contents, and tagged each post with a topic. On Sunday, I did the crunching.
245 is a sizable inventory and the total number will mushroom to more than 3,000 posts in the next 30 years if I continue at the current pace. I used to think I am creating a diary for my kids. The truth is that these posts may become a noose for them!
What kind of legacy is thousands of mundane musings from your mother!? The kids may feel guilty for deleting or losing them and they may not even have time to read them. Worse yet, they will have to pry the laptop from my gnarly hands when I become incoherent.
So why am I doing this?! It gives me a way to fill my time.
The site where this is hosted does not tell me who is reading my posts. That is like flying blind on these important questions: who are the repeat visitors, do readers like some posts but not the others, what works, what doesn't. Not knowing makes me do this for myself and there's a special pleasure in that as I found out many years ago.
In my 30s, I often complained that the boys in my life did not appreciate my efforts to keep the house tidy. I complained. We argued. I sulked. They ignored. I woke up one day and asked myself who is it that I keep things in order for?
The answer was clear: me!
From then on, I started cleaning for myself and the tensions in the house evaporated. I got immense pleasure from lining up the shoes and everyone benefitted from the lack of bickering. Unexpectedly, appreciation and help followed.
Writing this blog has a similar motivation. I do it for myself.
When you reach out to follow up on a post, that's icing on the cake for me. If the stats for first three years are indicative of the next 30, I know I am in good hands with you. When you like, dislike, or wish to correct me, I am all ears and just a ping away.
In my geeky weekend, I got insights into the topics I write about, which I hope will make my kids think of the blog less as a noose and more as a cozy scarf with hidden pockets of love, warmth, and humor. Most of all, I pray, that it will surround them with peace on dark and sad days like today when we mark a horrific milestone of so many lives lost to the pandemic.
