There has been a strange sense of wondering if I should be telling this part of my story.

What’s healing for me and therapeutic in telling may not be what most want to read.  Granted, some understand and some get what is going on in my head.  But I wonder how many are really tired of what they think is whining everyday.

I write.  An obscene amount of people read.  A few comment.

And I love those comments.  They mean the world to me.

But i wonder what the silent readers are thinking.

Sometimes, I will get an email out of the blue.  They read something and they connected or it reminds them of someone they had in their life.

For a second I get to touch their world.

It’s been hard because communication isn’t the easiest thing I’ve learned to do.  I’ve had to get around the feeling that people are listening for me to make mistakes.  I can’t explain what it does to a person like me to have the gift of quick speech stolen.

So, since I can’t speak like I’d like to, I write.

But maybe I shouldn’t.  Maybe it isn’t the healing tool I thought it was.

It might be a way of whining to a group that feels obligated to listen.

Back before I had the stroke, I was a very busy blogger.

I always had someone to meet, a company to rep, a product to try.

Dude, I was busy.

I also wrote my blog that I loved, I wrote the blog that I dreamed about (and it came true),  and these were just a few of the hundred jobs I felt I had.

Did I mention that I had a husband…..not to ever forget the three kids.

Then I had the stroke that changed everything.

And I had to learn to say no.

I had to learn to turn opportunities down.

I had to get past the idea that companies would forget I existed.

And I did it like a champ.

I turned down offers to speak at things because I really couldn’t yet.

There were thing that we’d really like to have, but I’m not able to do what they’re asking yet.

I just wasn’t well enough yet.

It was all ok.

Then came an offer that seemed to pinpoint all the things most wrong with me.  It felt like it made everything worse.  Turning it down felt like complete failure.

It was the first time a job offer made me cry.

I wanted to be ok again,  I wanted for this all to have not happened.

I wanted to be normal again.

Usually there are smiles and lots of laughter but sometimes days are like this.

Then i will wipe the tears away and get back to work.

There are times I have to switch my hats so fast it gives me whiplash.

Just hours into my time in North Carolina at the Type-A Mom Conference, I got a call that shook me to my core.

A call that left me crying in the bathroom.

A call with news that made my heart ache and bleed.

A call that nearly saw me get back in the car and drive straight to be with my friend as she dealt with terrifying unknowns and doors she isn’t prepared to open.

But, I put on my game face and pushed it deep down so that I wouldn’t think about it during this work time.  I laughed and joked, shook hands and wore my professional hat.  If a little askew, as always.

It was hard to be there, though.

Listening to people take jabs at each other…hearing the same tired arguments…watching people get so worked up over things that seemed  important before the call…it all shrunk in the knowledge that none of it mattered anymore.

SERIOUSLY.

IT.DOES.NOT.MATTER.

If the worst thing that happens in your day is that someone sends you an ugly email, try waiting for a call from the doctor to give you results you’re pretty sure you don’t want to hear.

If you’re going to argue about who makes money and if they’re doing it right, you’ve never sat in front of your checkbook and wondered what you weren’t going to pay so that you can afford to give your child the treatments they need AND keep a roof over their head.

If you can talk about your mafia, feel slighted because you weren’t the center of attention, or fret about your PR connections, you’ve never had to sit and contemplate the moment when they cut into your child’s brain to see what the tumors are doing.

I won’t lie and say that I wasn’t there to work and build my business…but I am, unfortunately, all too aware how quickly it can change, transform, disappear. It stops meaning anything.  It ceases to be the most important thing.

Tuesday I’ll be putting on my cancer mom hat that never leaves my side for long and take my daughter to the hospital.  I will have a stone in the pit of my stomach waiting for those all-encompassing counts to come. Praying they are what they should be.

Everything else will fade into the background.

And I will be neck-deep in what’s important.

When so much of your life is online, the distance doesn’t really matter.  With the writing team from Aiming Low being all over the country, we laugh together in chat rooms, we commiserate in Skype and we stay in daily contact through emails and Twitter.

We talk a lot.

But it is never the same as sitting in a room together, seeing faces, hearing the snorts and giggles…finally getting to meet the baby you’ve only seen in photos and videos….having the chance to feel the baby in your friend’s belly give a tiny kick.

Hearing me snore through the night.

Oh yeah. It’s just one big BALL of special!

For someone who’s not involved in an online community, there is no explaining how tightly bonded you feel to some people, how closely you can connect with someone you only see once a year or, if you’re really lucky, twice.

Yet, I’ve been so blessed to get to spend time with some of my most favorite ladies multiple times this year, and every time we get ready to part ways I feel like I’m leaving my sisters behind.

I share my dreams with these women…they work with me to achieve them…we laugh til we cry and cry til we’re able to laugh again.

These are people I tell my secrets.  They let me take incriminating videos of them.(Where they dance all CRAZY!) (and jump around) (and we laugh so hard we pee our pants) (which is so not a euphemism) (um. NEVER MIND.)

By Sunday night, I’ll be back in my home…all my friends on their ways home…back to packing lunches and piles of laundry…and talking to mah girls via phone calls and the internet.

Happy to be home.

But missing the sounds of their voices.

And counting the hours until I see them again.