Part of the Club


I am about to do my yearly blog book, so the other day, I was looking back on my posts and thinking about what would be in this year's recap of Our Life in the Yellow Brick House. I stumbled across a feature in Blogger I hardly look at anymore - my blog's stats. When I first started the blog back in 2010, I used to monitor the stats pretty regularly to see who was enjoying what posts and where people were coming to the blog from. My audience is pretty small, so over time not much changed, and I stopped using that feature all together.

That's why it was interesting to check-in on it again after several years' break. I was surprised to see a pretty dramatic jump in page views during March of last year. Now what happened March of last year? Oh, that's right. How could I have ever forgotten? We got Oliver in mid-February and March was my series of blogs chronicling our struggles with dog ownership. I look back on that time now and laugh, but, at the time, those were some very hard days. (As the ladies in my life group can attest.)

So why did people find those posts so interesting? I'm certain a portion of it has to do with the cuteness currently snoring beside me. But I don't think people were reading solely to see pictures of Oliver or to take pleasure in my pain, which, even I have to admit, was downright comical at some point. No, I think there is a community of dog lovers out there who could relate to what I was going through. Several people - some of whom I hadn't seen or spoken to in years - reached out to me during that time to check-in, offer advice and assure me it would get better.

All of the sudden, I was a part of the club. A club I really had no desire to be in prior to Oliver clumsily making his way into our lives. By making him a part of our family, we had an immediate connection to the millions billions of dog owners out there - from old friends to complete strangers in far away places like the DR.

I believe we were made to share our struggles and joys with others. That's what life is all about. We're all in this together, and there is fulfillment that comes with being able to offer a helping hand or a sympathetic ear. So thank you to those of you who have been willing to share life with me by reading this blog. As I approach my fifth-year anniversary, I am going to try to be a little more intentional about what I share. Instead of just documenting our weekend activities, I want to do a better job of sharing my hopes and dreams as well as my fears and failures - those things that connect us as human beings and make life worth living. Thanks for reading!

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