Reverb 10 Day 29 - Defining Moment

I'm participating in Reverb 10, a fantastic month-long initiative for reflection. Here I will be responding to one prompt every day.


I've struggled this month with Reverb 10, mostly because I am unsure of how I want my responses to read. I don't want them to be journal entries (I can do that in a more private forum), but I do want to use them to dig deep into the marrow of something important.

I want to use this blog to reach out. To become more connected to you. To be a part of a larger collective of folks who care about this world and the people in it, and who dream of becoming more on the inside and having less on the outside.

Which means that I read this prompt for the day:

December 29 – Defining Moment
Describe a defining moment or series of events that has affected your life this year.

and I think: what is my defining moment/series of moments? At the same time I also think: why should you care, and how will my response allow me to connect with you?

And so I have struggled. Some of the posts this month have been intensely personal, and I have decided not to share them here. Not because I am modest and nervous of over sharing (I am), but because I am unsure of what you can glean from a post that is Dana-centric and only relates to me.

I guess, in the end, we can all relate to each other in some way. We are all human, and the threads that hold me together also reach out to you. When I read your stories, when you tell me your story, when we share stories together, it resonates with me. In the same way, I hope that my stories resonate with you.
 
I could tell you again in great detail how the most defining moment/series of moments of my year all relate to this blog. Starting this blog, maintaining this blog, sharing myself on this blog, have changed my life. Before this year I don't remember ever reading another blog. Now I read several daily. I am getting to know people that I have never met in my life, simply because I read their stories every day, share their hopes, cry with them and watch their children grow.

Participating in this virtual community has changed me, has given me new ideas and has inspired me.

Thank you.

Thank you for sharing this space for me, for giving me words when I am feeling empty, for supporting me and for being here.

My most defining moment this year was not one moment at all, but a series of moments that grew into something more. A new perspective, a new stage of growth, a new Dana.

This community has sustained me. What has sustained you? Are you being sustained? If not, what could you do about it in 2011?

PS. Happy Birthday to my amazing father!