Making a Difference

Dining room table and chairs….with Grumpy.

Tabor stirred my thinking this morning.  Not only had I thought I would accomplish more with my volunteering, I thought my blogging would be of more import, be of more value and weight similar to that of my hand written journals.

Tabor had this to say about herself this morning, “I am that person I promised I would never become.  I am ego-centric enough to have never seen myself as one of the "ladies who lunch."  There is nothing wrong with that group, but I always wanted to be the edgier one, the one who was REALLY making a difference, the one whom others liked but also looked a little askance at since I marched to my own drummer and they could not hear the beat of that drum.  I wanted to be the one that accomplished something special.  I wanted to be the one that was warmed deep inside by what I had accomplished, what I had given or helped complete.”

I wrote her a note back saying, “ When I was in my late twenties and early thirties, I did take part in changing my world here in a big way.  (These days)… I am really happy with my job as the book lady, but for a while I worried that the job wasn't at all meaningful”

In the seventies, at my very bottom of drug induced madness, my husband’s girlfriend suggested I keep a written journal.  I would always leave the latest journal sitting out readable by anyone who stopped by.  Unconsciously I shared my days in words and pictures with the whole world.  My friend Dale would stop in and always read the journal first then he would visit.  Don and others would too.  My old friend Monica remembers my journals well.  Over the years they evolved into this blog.  These journals made a giant difference in my life.

But I have few readers here.  That’s disappointed me greatly.  On Open Diary, I would get twenty notes plus a day, and I felt my blogging was reaching an audience.  On Blogger, most days I get six or seven notes a day.  I confess that I read many bloggers but don’t always leave notes.  That makes a difference a big difference in the number of notes any blogger gets.  The older I get, the slower I get.

Just as I am not changing the world by blogging, I am ploddingly slow as a volunteer.  I show up early, park in the wrong place, sit on a cushion, and wear arm braces.  I’m not a sight to inspire enthusiasm.  But I show up and can use a computer at slightly beyond a beginner level.  As I visit trees I planted downtown and see how they have grown, I can see what I have accomplished as a book lady or Facebook lady.  Even if I have not changed the world in a big way, I suit up and show up.

In the end, I wrote, “As I have more problems with parts of me wearing out, I've come to the decision that any time freely given is a good thing.”  I should have also told her loudly that her words here do make a difference to many of us every day.

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Himself:  Looking for bowls to go with a mixer we want to donate, playing games, docenting.

Herself:  Writing, photographing, puttering.

Reading:  Finished Kinsey and Me.  Powerful writing.

Balance:  Puttering.  Showering and more puttering.