As I prepared for surgery, I scratched out thoughts and feelings through fervent journal writing. I did some blogging, too, but feeling like I got burned with that before (with my first husband's anger over my participating in a blog site), I was timid about it, not serious.
The 'tiny snips' the nurse from the surgical center had promised me over the phone when I'd called with nervous questions before my procedure were nothing of the sort. The surgeon had done a quilting bee, and on my face. Things were rearranged and grotesquely swollen.
If there was ever a time to rely on my personality and character, this would have been it. I wasn't so sure what would be what after things had healed up. Having the choice to either worry myself sick about my appearance, or to try to let that part of me go, I decided to focus more on the inside.
Writing, yet again, was a tremendous help.
My essay-type blog posts became more heartfelt. My poetry also began to have some flavor it hadn't previously held. Comments from other bloggers began to trickle in, telling me how my words had touched and affected them. This was an undeniable rush.
Why was it different about this time around? Two factors. I was giving myself time to write, and I was more conscious than ever of my mortality, which provided an 'I don't care if you like it or not, this is me' sort of an attitude. All in all, my writing was much more sincere, which in turn drew more interest.
As the weeks went by and I healed up, the swelling went down and I could see that my face would, for the most part, recover with an only slightly altered form. I continued to write with as genuine a voice as I could muster, learning this took maintenance. Skipping a few days or even a week meant battling personal walls again, and re-learning to open up emotionally. I found that outside events could also cause some backsliding, anything that created a self-protective, withdrawing mode would become a barrier, writing-wise.
The blog site I used had a ranking system, where I could easily see the popularity level of my blogs. The personal essay blog out-ranked the poetry blog by a long stretch, indicating what readers preferred. I started ranked at something like the 3,000th. Each day that number decreased. 1000th, 514th, 200th. Knowing this blog was international, to reach the 200 area was satisfying for me. Other than my high school teacher's comments, I'd never known any sort of recognition for my writing. Fellow bloggers' encouraging interactions and watching the rankings climb was what kept me posting.
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