Happy Birthday Pink Shoes!

My blog is 1 today!

One amazing year of all of you reading my stuff, throwing me some comment love, following me, sharing posts that you deemed important enough to let your friends in on, and most importantly.....encouraging me.

When you decide to type down some thoughts, convictions, and beliefs and throw them out into the Internet universe you kind of hope that some of them stick to the proverbial wall.  You cross your fingers that you won't just hear crickets chirping in return.

Some of those thoughts have stuck to the wall.  And I've heard way more than crickets.

And for that......Thank-You.

I wrote a post back in November about why I blog to begin with.  I talked about my love for writing and how blogging helps me focus on the things in my life that are really important....and really amazing.  And all of the reasons I wrote about in that post are still true.  But another reason has surfaced in the last few months.  The best reason.

Support.  A circle.  New friends.

Over half of you that follow my blog........I've never met you in person.  I've never heard your voice.  I've never been in the same room with you......and yet......you regularly encourage me with a comment, a share, an e-mail, or a Facebook message.  I count you as friends.

As a result of this blog I've met a community of other women, over 100 strong, who also blog about their adoption experiences.  They share their victories and heartache in the amazing bond that we all have in common--adoption.  I have a new friend that has an eerily similar open adoption story to ours--not only are our are babies separated in birth by a couple of weeks, the relationship we have with their birth parents is mirrored. We hold the same changed convictions and beliefs about open adoption and we are passionate to share with the world how amazing it can be. I've never been to Delaware but I'm pretty sure a trip is in the cards.

This camaraderie.........it's makes every keyboard stroke that much more gratifying.  This sister-hood of adoptive mamas I now find myself a part of is gratifying in ways that I find hard to put into words.

I write about a lot of things here. But none......to me......are as important as the ones I write about adoption.  Why I believe in it, how it's changed me, how I think it can change other people, my frustration over how infrequently young birth mothers are talked to about adoption being a noble option, and how desperately I want to cultivate a culture of adoption in this country.

And it starts with one post at a time.

A few of my favorites on adoption from this past year............

• Adoption Day
• Hard Questions
• One Word. My word.
• Adoptive Moms Wish
• Choosing Adoption.  A Birth Family's Story.
• Public Enemy #1 

And I have lots more favorites that aren't about adoption.  Favorites that apply to my other reasons for blogging; creating a legacy, dwelling on the good, seeing the positive, searing memories into my brain forever, preserving things about Georgia that are fleeting but I never want to forget, learning how to be a mom, and just...........life.  

I've learned more in this past year, through my writing and all of you, about myself and who I want to be.  When I write it--I remember it, I believe it, I etch it into my brain--not soon to be forgotten.  

So happy birthday Pink Shoes.  

The first year has been a good one.  http://bumbersbumblings.blogspot.com/