Nicole feels

So I've been going at this diary thing for four years now.

Four years!? (Insert low whistle here)

That seems really hard to believe. What started out as a fun little hobby, a place to keep up with my sisters and cousin, has become so much more to me.

I still get those looks when I tell someone I have an online journal. You know. And the "you write about your thoughts and stuff and other people read it?" And I smile, and say, "Yeah, I do." And there are still those that, as mainstream as blogging has become, still sort of shake their head and give me another one of those looks.

I have found that lately I am at a loss for words. I am not sure why. I was encouraged over four years ago after going through a particularly rough time where I realized I had a suitcase full of issues that needed unpacking that I should journal. At first I gave that a big ole "pfffttt". Then a few months later I started this, with no intention, mind you, of ever really saying anything deep, or profound (not that I have anyway), or personal.

And then the words began to roll out, like waves, sometimes gentle and slow, sometimes rough and tumble. Always changing the shape and scope of the sand. And yet, not so much.

It's still the same beach, you know?

When the words don't come, I wonder why. Have I run out of things to say? Was this for a certain time and place in my life, a time when I needed to see things in front of me, in black and white, to process and rant and rave and laugh and cry and sigh and smile?

Then I think of you. All of you who, as crazy as it does seem when one thinks "logically", have become friends. Who feel like family. People who, in my small little world, I likely would never have met. People who have encouraged and prodded and laughed and even set me straight a time or two.

I don't want to even think that I've outgrown this place, because that seems to insinuate that I have outgrown you. And I don't think that for a minute.

So, when the words don't come, I am still here. Lingering. Listening. Even praying.

And above all, thanking God for you.

(End of mush; for those of you with major mush-factors, we will resume our regularly scheduled, intermittent entries soon.)