Today marks 100 days of writing. I’m not a huge milestone person but for some reason I’ve been looking towards this since, well since yesterday but whatever. I am telling you to celebrate wins so I should at the least heed my own advice. 

The week after Christmas this year I started toying with with idea of some resolutions. I’ve never been a big resolver as I think any day is a good day to change, but I was needing something. 

The first list was pretty simple. Don’t drink until the Louisiana Marathon and maybe write more often. I don’t remember when I decided to make it a daily thing and I know I didn’t put a “start writing on New Year’s Day,” deadline on it because I started on the 3rd. 

THIS was the first entry and it was decent. I just read it and like almost everything I have written. I forgot what I wrote. 

Reviewing it now, I was still crawling out from a pretty bad stretch of depression which kind of hit its peak in October sometime. I’m happy to say the last 100 days have seen way less of that. Maybe the writing has helped. Maybe deciding not to entertain being depressed helped too. Both are acts of will that I am lucky to at the least have been able to recognize and act upon. Not everyone has it that easy. 

As the days wore on I received an outpouring of messages and real world attaboys. People were reading and finding value and that felt good. I wasn’t changing the world or anything, but I was at the least providing positive speed bumps in peoples days.

On the 4th day I mention that I am not committed to writing every day forever, yet, here we are. I still don’t know what my endgame is with this. I am scared that I have simply created another “thing” to be doing and that the writing will suffer. At the same time, every few days or so, I will write a line or a post I am immensely proud of and I know that that comes from flexing the muscle daily.

I’ve written roughly 30,000 words over the last couple months, and that tells me that if I wanted to write a book, I’d be 200-250 pages in. I mean if this blog were a book, it would be a garbled plotless mess, but it would be at the least, closing in on the right length. This is pretty cool to me.

But with each positive, I’ve had a lot of the same self doubt. One part “is this worth putting out there” and one part the general “you sure think highly of your opinions.” Both of those are true. This is natural self doubt and unguided/unintentional narcissism. I don’t over think it too much, until I go back and read or my wife and friends call me on it.

I have had the opportunity through writing to make one woman’s life a smidge better for a day (ONE SECOND) and told you how much I hate mayo (MAYO SUCKS). I’ve been too honest about poop (THANKS RICH WHITE PEOPLE) and written about another me that lives 1000 miles away (He’s Patrick Fellows).

I started out this thing with a picture of me. When I started sharing them on FB and Instagram, I realized that if I didn’t add a picture to them each time, the same pic would show up, so I started adding selfies to them. Sometimes they were relevant, most times, not at all. It just became a thing. You’ll continue to get my mug looking at you with equal parts discontent and happiness. Usually that’s the same look on my face.

All in all, it’s been way more positive than negative and to you who read, a heartfelt thank you. I haven’t gotten to recording those cover songs yet, but I still want to. I know that theres a place for ads that keeps showing up, and I can’t seem to fix it or bother with selling an ad for it, because, well, at 4 a.m. I can barely think straight enough to write, let alone be a computer person guy.

100 days.

100 hugs.

100 hi5s.

Until tomorrow.

#hugsandhi5s