Saturday Centus - Happy Anniversary, Man!

HAPPY ANNIVERSARY!

This is week fifty-two of Saturday Centus.

That's just crazy, isn't it?

In honor of the date, I thought I'd tell you the story of where my idea for this meme came from.

Okay?

I hope you said 'YES', but I'm going to tell you anyway, regardless of your answer.

So there!

So...

It was a dark and stormy night...

Okay, it really wasn't.

But it was a sad morning.

About a year after one of my dear friends had passed away, I was talking to her daughter on the phone...a sweet, broken-hearted woman, who had previously found comfort in her life through her wonderful writing skills.

The daughter's sorrow was profound, and I had been encouraging her to start writing again as a means of expressing her emotions. When I asked her if putting her feelings on paper helped, in a very small voice she had told me, "I don't know. I can't. I just can't write anymore. I open a notebook and the whole page just stares back at me. I am frozen by the emptiness of the paper."

The next day I bought a pretty notebook and wrote a prompt on the top of 52 pages. Silly prompts. Serious prompts. Crazy prompts.

And I wrapped the notebook up and sent it to her.

After I mailed it, I realized that I would like to have a notebook like that, too. I would like to have a starting point for those days when words were difficult to transfer from brain to paper...a way to stretch myself in writing with different prompts and writing styles.

And I decided to try the concept on my blog. In this meme.

Cuz, yeah, it's always cool to go totally public with an idea you're not totally sure will work at all.

Sigh...

I was pretty sure that it was a dumb idea. That no-one would like to do it. And I would end up looking like a moron.

But!

You liked it! And you participated!

And every single week I would come out here and laugh or cry, be astonished or amazed and always feel like I had just opened the most amazing gifts. Because you all just dived in with no looking back and no complaining (okay, that's a total lie, but I'm trying to be nice here!)

And for some cheesy reason, it almost makes me cry. It's hard to believe it's been a year. I am honored to have gotten to know so many of you so well through the tremendous word crafting you share every week.

Thank you.

Thank you for not making me do this alone. Thank you for liking it! Thank you for participating.

And...

Happy Anniversary, Man!

Let me raise a glass to each one of you!



And here's this weeks prompt.

"Although the traditional gift for a first anniversary is paper..."

And as a special gift to you...not only do you get your usual 100 words...YOU CAN ALSO USE A PICTURE THIS WEEK IF YOU WANT!

I'm not kidding! Woo hoo! Let the partying begin!

And the rest of the blah, blah, in case you've forgotten is:

Please display link button or just a hyper-link back to Saturday Centus. Be careful to link your SC URL to the Linky and not just link to your main blog. Keep your post PG AND no more than 100 words.

Feel free to link up anytime between now and next Saturday!