It occurred to me today that I’m a writer.

This is my one-hundredth daily post in a row, dating all the way back to the midst of the pandemic quarantine. When I set out to start doing this, it was really just kind of an after-thought; “Oh, that’s right, I have a blog. I forgot all about that. I should start that back up. I should use it for something.”

Since then, I have published blog posts on all manner of different things, most of them having to do with how I’m feeling on a particular subject at a particular moment. Kind of lame, if you ask me; I can’t imagine what it is that the people who are regularly reading this are getting out of it. But, whether or not I’ve attracted three regular readers or three hundred or three hundred thousand, the writing has been almost entirely about me. I guess that’s the way that it should be; if I’m writing for me, then it doesn’t really matter whether or not anyone else sees it or reads it or likes it.

I’ve struggled my entire life with popularity –especially back in my school days; thoughts of who likes me and who doesn’t like me have been present in my mind for all of my life. When it comes to this blog, there is a part of me that wishes that there were a hundred people, or a thousand people, who were waking up each morning, thinking to themselves, “Man, I can’t wait to read what Phil has written lately.” But, the fact that the audience isn’t there hasn’t stopped me from writing. It seems like this process is serving my needs, more than it’s serving anyone else’s needs, and so I will keep doing it.

* * *

In the elementary school of the school district where I work (and maybe in every school district in the country, for as much as I know), the students get excited about the one-hundredth day of school. The teachers, especially in the lower el classrooms, foster this excitement by asking the students to bring in one hundred of whatever they’d like
–one hundred cheerios or one hundred paper clips or one hundred toothpicks– to celebrate the one-hundredth day of school (usually in February, if memory serves).

This celebration, of one hundred days gone by (and eighty-some days remaining) is a chance for celebrating a milestone.

Similarly, people who are able to live to be one hundred years old are called centenarians. Only five people in every one thousand people will live to be one hundred years old; nine hundred and ninety-five people, out of every one thousand, will die before the age of one hundred. So, here we have another example of how wonderful it is to make it to one hundred.

One more interesting thing to say about one hundred –> did you know that there used to be a thing called a short hundred and a different thing called a long hundred? As it turns out, prior to the fifteenth century, the word hundred meant different things in Germanic languages, than it did in the English language.

Back then, in Germanic languages, a hundred actually meant 120, otherwise known as six-score. This ended up being called the long hundred, to differentiate it from English. In English, one hundred has always been known as five-score; since a score is equal to twenty, we all understand that one hundred is the same as five-score, which of course we would, since we are all reading this cute post that I’ve written (in English).

* * *

I’ve been exporting all of the posts –all of the writing– out into a separate document. I word-counted that document the other day, and I’ve written, in these one hundred posts, the equivalent of a four-hundred page novel. THAT BLOWS MY MIND.

But, on the other hand, it’s really not that impressive.

I’ve just done the thing that I’ve always told myself that I’ve always wanted to do, instead of… not doing it.

That’s the trick, I suppose. The person who wants to be a world-class basketball player, who never plays basketball, probably isn’t getting any closer to their dream. Whether or not playing basketball on a regular basis ever gets that person anywhere in their life, they’d at least be able to call themselves a basketball player if they were… well, a basketball player.

The process of writing has made me a writer, imagine that!

One of my regular readers told me a while back that I am a very talented writer. I don’t know about all that, but I do know that this person, this friend of mine, would have never had the opportunity to decide on the level of my talent –or the lack thereof– if I hadn’t started writing.

Of course, no one wants to fail at the thing that they’ve been dreaming of doing their whole life, so there is a level of risk involved in making the attempt. Writing one hundred of these posts, day after day after day, has not been easy. It’s been a major burden on my time –which I’ve had a lot of lately, so there’s that– and there are some days that I just don’t feel much like writing.

Therein lies the determination.

And also, the weight of the momentum of this thing has now ballooned to the point where it feels like a run-away locomotive that I barely have a grasp on. I suppose I could let go, and be tossed to the side of the tracks, as it runs away without me. Or, I could continue to commit to keeping a firm grasp on this, so that I will still be ‘on-board’ when the train pulls in to its next station, wherever that might be.

As much work as it is to continue to try to stay committed to doing this thing, right now –> it’s all that I got.

* * *

I have a couple of dear friends, my wife included, with whom I share a lot about my writing; the struggles of doing it and the excitement that I have about it. One of these friends, the other day, when I was talking to them about my blog, asked me whether or not I’d ever thought of trying to expand my audience, making the blog and its contents available through other avenues.

That scares me a little bit.

But, it’s often in doing the hard thing that we grow.

So, maybe tomorrow, I will advertise this one-hundredth blog post in a couple of different ways. Maybe it is time to spread my wings, to see where this journey heads to next. I mean, I got here by taking a chance at doing something that has been hard and also very enjoyable and admirable. Let’s see where the next step gets me.

Here’s to the next one hundred, and where I will be when that next milestone comes.