Question number one

Eric's Journal
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Question:
Why are you going to stop writing in your journal?

 

Answer: 
Alright, I’ll address this question now because if I don’t, I am sure that my inbox will become even more overloaded with this very same question.   Figured this would probably be the best place to throw a quick response.  

I started this endeavor with the website/fundraiser/journal to inform my readers about my status and how things are going.  It grew pretty quickly from there.  We’ve now raised about $30,000 for the Leukemia and Lymphoma Society from 2003 to now.  Even as my health continued to improve, I still felt compelled to write something every other week or so.  It’s come a pretty long way in the past 12 months.

 

The first reason is that I am feeling much better physically now.  I have little to nothing to write about my condition anymore…unless I were to relapse again or something.  So each time I write an entry, I struggle to come up with a message that will have real meaning.   Quite often, I will sit down and want to write something, but maybe nothing has really happened.  Maybe it’s been 2-3 weeks since I last wrote and I just can’t come up with anything to write about.  I don’t want my entry to sound something like, “Well, I woke up today…had a bowl of cheerios…went to work….got home…had some dinner…went to bed.  The end.”  Ideally, I’d like each of my entries to have some sort of meaning…especially now that I am feeling better.  

 

I guess my second reason would be that the one year anniversary since this whole thing sort of launched is coming up pretty soon here.  For whatever reason, it feels like a good time to wrap this up.  

 

Another reason, and this one isn’t as important to me, but each week I seem to get less and less hits on my entries.  I know there are a lot of you that follow my journal and you have been great support.  I hope that this whole thing has been as enjoyable for you as it was for me.  I get a lot of feedback from people telling me that I should write a book or something.  I don’t even know how I would go about doing something like that.  I’d be lying if I said I wasn’t interested in the idea.  I think it would be great if I could put something together and donate the proceeds towards cancer.  I know this is really off topic and doesn’t answer the question at all at the top but if anyone has any connections/tips/advice on how to get something like that going, “have your people talk to my people.”  🙂  Did I just say that?  Yep…I guess I did.  

 

Back to the question…what it really all boils down to…is that I have said everything that I could and I just don’t have anything left in my wee little mind to tell you all.  We’ve been through a lot of shit together.  The reason I say “we” is that because I have come to the realization that a lot of you were right there with me through it all by actively reading my journals or coming to visit me or writing me a letter or card or something.  However you or anyone you know connected to me or I connected to you is something that I will never forget.  

 

I assure you my next journal entry will be VERY long.  This whole thing, all of my journals up to this point, adds up to over like 55,000 words now.  A lot has been thought.  A lot has been said.  A lot has been felt. 

 

Know that this was not an easy decision to make…not at all.  I hope you all don’t feel like I am abandoning you or something, because that is not my intent.  In all honesty, I probably won’t quit writing cold turkey.  To what extent I will continue to write I do not know.  I’ve gotten more responses from people about my blog/journey/etc in the past 24 hours than I have had in the past 12 months…whatever or however this whole thing wraps up…just know that the words and feedback that I have gotten have meant A LOT to me and I will never forget you guys.

 

 

 

P.S. From the entry in my guestbook…who the heck dropped a can of baked beans on my foot in N.C.?  I’ve only been there a handful of times and I leaning towards one of my cousins (I won’t reveal the name that I suspect, because of the anonymousness of the guestbook entry) ….but I can’t remember who that is for the life of me!  Respond!