Images from four days spent with women from the blogosphere that I didn't know, are now co-mingled with memories of four days spent with some of the most amazing women I have ever been fortunate enough to meet and now call friends.
People who know me and in particular, know my own personal situation, were hesitant to believe that something good could come from something so foreign...to them. While blogs and blogging aren't unknowns to these people, the fact that someone would drive 800 miles one way to spend almost four days with people she'd gotten to know via the cyber-world, seemed, I dare say, a little unusual to them. To those individuals, the wonderful people I have spent the last several days with, are little more than "the people who live in the computer."
However, my husband, daughter and therapist; my own personal cheer leading squad, knew better. Granted, I wasn't sure I had enough Xanax to get through the initial face-to-face meeting (although on the drive down, and especially once we crossed the VA state line, I was so anxious and filled with nerves that I had to pull over three times so I could throw up...), with the women who turned out to be amongst some of the most beautiful people I've ever had the privilege of meeting; it didn't end up being an issue at all.
Here I sit, six days after my journey began, with my fur babies curled around my feet (well except for Griffy, who decided he was either so pissed off that I'd left in the first place, or overjoyed that I had finally returned - that he brought me a squirrel. Um, a metabolically challenged squirrel if you get my drift!), the Little Imp sacked out on the sofa with what we hope is only a nasty summer cold (fever of 102F, cough and general yuckiness has enveloped my little curly haired angel.), and the whir of a fan gently blowing behind me; trying to absorb everything and put into words how much this experience meant to me and how much it moved me.
In the next couple of days I hope to do that...to try and share with you some of what made this past weekend so memorable and given me a glimps into a life that I didn't think ever had a chance in hell of existing for me again. A life filled with smiles, laughter, silliness; a life filled with new friends and new experiences and most of all, a life lived outside of the confines of my own home and the shackles that have kept me chained inside myself for far too long.
Any young man that offers to move a little closer to you in order to be the first to be stung by the jellyfish in order to keep you from being stung, well, he's worth visiting again, especially since the beautiful young lady (Megawatt) had already been stung pretty severely, earlier in the afternoon. More about that over the next few days.
BlogFest and the memories it gifted me with are an indelible reminder of life and how very worth living it is! Thank you Chesapeake Bay Woman, Big Hair Envy, and everyone else who attended and made this experience so memorable and such an extraordinary reminder that there are still beautiful people left in the world.
