Wow. Can this really be? This is my 1,000th post here at Choosing Beauty. That’s a thousand photos (or more), a thousand reflections, a thousand reasons to be so grateful! And thousands upon thousands of you all around this spinning planet who have so graciously welcomed me and my blog through your computer screens and into your homes and hearts. It chokes me up to think of all of you who have supported me on this journey.
This little blog of mine started on my birthday – October 11, 2006 – when the blogosphere was so different. I barely even knew what a blog was at the time, but wanted and needed a place to share a picture a day for a year. That was my goal, inspired by a brilliant rainbow I saw while sitting at an intersection just after leaving my therapist’s office. No one around me seemed to notice the rainbow and I wished I had a camera to capture the moment, share it with others and be reminded of the subtle ways beauty creeps into my life every day. The blog started with the name One Year of Beauty; I figured do it for a year (although I had several friends who worried I’d never make it that long) and then I’d shut her down.
Little did I know how transformative that year would be, how making a conscious effort to find the beauty in my midst daily would open me up, help me heal and remind me who I was and am and want to be. Truth be told, it was also a lot of work, so after those first 365 days, I tried to pull back for a while and post something every few days. But you, my dear readers, urged me to come back full-force; your heartfelt, sometimes heartbreaking emails bowled me over. And I actually started to miss the daily practice of finding and celebrating everyday beauty. So, I started posting daily again in 2008.
And now here we are, a thousand posts in and I’m just in awe of the journey. Thank you SO much for being part of it, whether you’ve been here since the beginning or just found Choosing Beauty this week. You keep me going and I’m so thankful to have so many cheerleaders out there. I hope you know how beautiful you are to me.
