The best thing about me: Random acts of kindness

I have training as a ninja. Well, not really. If we were to boil it all down, it would be more like really good espionage. It is a skill I am truly proud of too. There is no surprise too hard to handle! I have pulled off missions whose recipients are 'across the pond', and some clear across this country. It makes me feel good.

It all started with an obsession. The dark Goth/fashionista (strange combo to be sure) wanted something awesome to put on the girls bums when diapering. It gets extremely tiring to be changing the same boring cloth diaper, white in color, day in and out! Blah! I need color and excitement in my life. Thank YOU, Gen-Y Diapers! Their cloth diaper covers come in all prints, and are like Pringles; you really can't have just one! Due to my obsession, I joined their chat group(more like a group of enablers) to chat about diapers, babies, and sometimes life with other Mamas who were as obsessed with these covers as I was. Dangerous for the addiction angle of all this..oh yeah!

While chatting with these Mamas, I made fast friendships all over the world! I can now boast friendships all over the UK and all over the US. Yes, I am special! But, it also let me in their lives. Their everyday challenges, ups and downs, and of course, all the nice pretty things they coveted. This led me to think about how I could 'reward' Mamas who were taking time to be wonderful to others. My covert 'ninja missions' were born.

I would scour the chat for evidence of kindness, and immediately, jot the name on a list, along with what diaper cover they were most looking forward to owning one day. Needless to say, I was not the only one thinking this, and quite a few other Mamas(the original 7; grew to 12 rapidly) began to send diaper covers with little gifts to make the recipient one happy gal.

Oh yes, it got expensive very fast, but I found that what I was looking for was the feeling that something I worked hard on(trust me, the covers are practically collectibles and can be hard to find) would be enjoyed by someone else. Bonus: the Mama wouldn't know I was sending it, so finding her address was also hard work. I enjoyed the chase! The chase for information on the Mama, of course, and also the fun that here I was chatting with her everyday, and she didn't have a clue what was on its way to her. It was always amazing to find a thank you message in my inbox and a picture of the gift. While I don't do it as often now, I still love to hit someone with some ninja love when I can.

Recently, I was asked by a friend to write about what I thought the best thing about me was. I think I racked my brain for ideas, nixed quite a few, and finally I thought about my 'ninja gifting missions'. Huh. There might be something to that! I love doing a random act of kindness a day, simply because I liken it to a virus: once it is caught, it propagates very very quickly! It makes me happy, that through some small token, I can bring happiness into the daily life of someone else. I like helping others. THIS is the best thing about me. Well, one of them, anyway.

There's a lot more that defines me, to be sure, I really am like an onion. But, there is nothing like seeing the smile on someone's face when something you did, changed the course of their day or week. It is wonderful to know, that in spite of all the craziness in our lives, someone out there cares for you and thinks you are important enough to gift you with their hard work, time, and love. My hope is that by doing these things, silly as they may seem, I can teach my spawn about the importance of helping others. That even though we run as a family pack, we belong to a much bigger pack that we must take care of, as well. By planting one seed of kindness within this bigger pack, we have changed the dynamic in caring only for the self, into one where we think of others first. It is an important quality that must be cultivated, taken care of, and developed.

As for me, the random acts of kindness aren't limited to cloth diaper groups. Or even to other Mamas. I try to do as many nice things in my day as I can; to go that extra mile. You never know when a little something you do: a sign, a smile, a kind word, a letter, a song, a care package, or yes, even a diaper will help someone in need. Always. I am firm believer in that!  

On writing, or blogging as it were...

It had been 10 years since I could write. I had a massive writer's block episode and I couldn't break out of it. Writing prompts, doodling upside down, drinking absinthe...nothing worked. No, I won't tell you where but yes, you can still get it, illegal though it is. The Green Fairy helped quite a lot of writers back in the day, why couldn't it help me? Sigh. I went from writing daily in university, helping others brainstorm ideas,  and winning awards for my writing to doing nothing. Nada. The imagination machine simply ceased to work.

It was probably one of my darkest periods because it is the one thing I really wanted to do. To write. I loved grabbing my pen, or turning on the laptop and just letting it flow..whatever came out. It just wasn't happening. It was like the drive, the excitement of creating something had just dried up. During this time, one good friend(who sat next to me in all those writing classes, incidentally) kept encouraging me to write. Not to worry about anything, just try. With his encouragement, I did. Didn't get very far, but the effort was there on the page. Maybe this would go away and I could get a move on with things. Yeah, right!

Time went on and soon enough, 10 years had passed by. I still hadn't really broken out of it but this friend kept at me. He encouraged me to write, mentioned that one of our professors wrote his own book, and was just there always providing me with the fodder for creation. He is an amazing friend, to say the least.

 I don't know what did it. What turned the imagination machine back on? Maybe it was his stubborn encouragement, maybe the stars aligned in the just the right way, or maybe I finally had gotten over the need to create in order to please others and just please myself. I am not sure, but I finally decided that instead of writing a book , a story, poetry, I would write a blog. Weird leap, I know. Purists would say it is not even real writing. To me, after not doing it for a while, it is probably the best way to jump in with both feet and just do it. To write for the sake of enjoying writing and not to please those around me. Not for a grade, not because I was told this is a subject you NEED to write about....just for me.

I am writing almost every other day. Sometimes more than that, sometimes less than that. But, I AM WRITING. It is a release from a prison of my own making and can I just tell you how wonderful it feels? It is like a huge weight has fallen off my shoulders, because I am now comfortable enough to allow the ideas to flow.

I am hopeful that I keep it up. That nothing stops this new creative process, but what I most hope to gain out of this whole experience, is that I am doing something I love. I am writing this for posterity and also writing it for my friend. Because he believed in my skill more than I did. It's nice when someone believes in you like that, it keeps your light from dying out.

As I am writing this, in freestyle as it were, or a madcap diary entry of some sort, I can't help but thinking of Anne Shirley and her conversation with Gilbert Blythe. In that conversation, he told her to write what she knew about because there would always be plenty of people that would read her stories. Anne Shirley scoffed at him but when she had matured enough to heed his advice, she wrote and wrote about the things she knew about. She used her life as the starting point and went on from there to create a novel. A good one too!

I am hoping that I have now matured, like Anne, have the courage to write what I know about, and enjoy it. So that one day, my friend, Gilbert Blythe, can read it.