Confession

Maybe it's time for a little confessional.

Will this make me appear self-serving in your eyes?

Maybe.

But I'm going to risk it.

I once wrote that I blogged to gain perspective on my days and my life in general. To remember to laugh at the mundane or pull extraordinary from what feels ordinary.

That is still true.

But more than one thing can be true at the same time- right?

I also write this blog because, well, because I really like your comments. Really like them.

As in, I check my e-mail in the morning just to see if anyone had anything to say and I get happy when I see the little numbers go up on the comment section and when I read the facebook responses. Really happy.

Thus far, I have found motherhood to be funny and inspiring and humbling and joyous but also isolated, lonely and discouraging.

There isn't exactly a lot of encouragement in my chosen field of work.

There is no annual job review where your boss gives you the old cr*p sandwich. (In my house - cr*p is still a cuss word - okay?) The talk where you get to hear one good thing, one bad thing and one good thing. Like a sandwich.

Customers don't send e-mails back to my manager to talk about what a great impression I made on a client.

After I speak people aren't lined up to thank me for bringing a good word or revealing some new truth.

And no one is paying me by the hour as a consultation fee.

So I get pretty giddy when I see the super kind comments and words of love and encouragement that you guys leave from time to time.

It is not exaggerating to say that my heart gets pretty full and frankly I am humbled that you click on this link and read this stuff.

There just isn't enough encouragement in our day to day lives is there?

We're pretty stingy with our kindness.

We women.

My mom used to always say, as her mom used to always say, "If you can't say anything nice, don't say anything at all."

I want to tell my kids often, "If you can't be kind, just be quiet."

As teenage girls we learn to stop being encouragers I think. We become competitors or rivals or something.

And then we spend most of our adult lives trying to quiet those voices we let rule us in the halls and the locker rooms of our adolescence.

Maybe we think saying kind words threatens us in some way. I'm not really sure. Women can be so jealous of other women.

(Because we love to compare. But that's a topic for another day.)

So all this is to say, thank you for your amazingly kind words. For reading these blogs filled with ramblings and sentence fragments.

Thank you for encouragement that makes me smile every time a new comment appears. For filling a void in a sometimes discouraging job.

And take that kindness to the streets. To the Wal-Mart check out line. (Those cashiers - now they need some kind words spoken their way.)

Whose day would not be made better if she knew you liked her shirt or blue was her color or her hairstyle was flattering?

When you think something nice, speak it.

We all need encouragement.