You and I Are Going to Change (a minimum of) 40 People's Lives Forever

I am turning 40 on the 29th of December, and the older I get the more I realize how very blessed my life is and has been. Because of this, I want this milestone to have meaning that extends beyond me. I want to give back to the world in some way.

My goal? I want us to help 40 people gain ongoing access to clean water through Charity: Water by my birthday. All we have to do is raise $2,650 over the next 4 months. We can do that, right?



I have so many things behind me to ensure my relative health and success. I grew up with access to health care, a family that loved me, an abundance of food, free education, and a house to keep me warm, but something even greater than all of that, something that we usually overlook because so many of us have so much of it, is clean water.

I grew up with clean water. I could drink it, wash my food in it, bathe in it, and play in it without wondering where it came from or worrying about how much I used. I had no idea that it was the basic key to a good life.

So much of the world is without access to clean water, let alone enough water, and it means miles and miles of physical travel and work every day just to have enough to stay alive through the next day if it doesn't make a person too sick before they can go back for more. Without access, children are turned away from schools without clean clothes, potentially good food is contaminated by a dirty water source, and parasites and other diseases take too many children before they're five years old.

I got to grow up to look forward to my 40th birthday in a place where water is as easy as a turned tap anywhere I go. I want others to be able to have at least the ability to drink without being poisoned by the only source that can sustain them. I want more people to have 40th birthdays like mine where they can find themselves still healthy and young and looking forward to a future where the water we give our children won't be responsible for their deaths.

So help me help 40 people gain access to clean drinking water for my 40th birthday. What we think of as a little water can change a lot of lives, and this is all I want this year. Pass it on.

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PS. I learned about Charity: Water at the World Domination Summit in Portland this summer, and I knew immediately that I wanted to do something with this organization. The administrative costs of Charity: Water are covered by private donors so that 100% of your donations directly fund water project costs in the field. Take a moment to find out how this fantastic charity works, check out all their completed projects so far on Google Maps, and watch videos and read stories from in the field.

I've Been Blogging For Nine Years Today, and It's Mostly Your Fault

Would you believe that this weblog is NINE YEARS OLD today? Because it is! To celebrate, here is a picture of me inside the number nine giving you the crazy eyes.



I had no idea when I started blogging, under the Palinode's influence, that it would be anything other than an online version of letters to friends I hadn't yet met, so when I hit publish on my first blog entry — it was, bizarrely, an essay about why it's a bad idea to swallow your own tongue — I went about my life as though nothing remarkable had happened.

I look back at blogger-me of 2003, and I feel like patting her on the head like she's a goofy, drooling puppy with oversized feet that keep stepping on her own ears, because DAMN I was so cute not knowing all the stuff I didn't know.

For instance, I didn't know that:

• I would become a writer who would read her words to hundreds of people in a ballroom in San Francisco.
• I would be invited to speak on numerous panels at both BlogHer and Blissdom Canada conferences.
• I would wind up in the Globe & Mail and on CBC Radio and in Woman's Day and on CBC News and in Best Health.
• I would become a phoneographer who would travel to conferences to talk about iPhoneography, be a part of a worldwide iPhoneography exhibition, and be a contributor to a book about the craft.
• I would get to write with so many great people at BlogHer, MamaPop, Aiming Low, and Girl Body Pride.
• I would start my very own little community called Grace in Small Things based around the simple idea of gratitude.
• I would work to champion better blogging at Five Star Friday and the Canadian Weblog Awards.
• I would eventually quit my office job so I could start a full-time career under an umbrella I would call Ninjamatics.
• I would join up with a phenomenal board of directors in service of the fantastic non-profit Violence UnSilenced.
• I would team up with Laurie and Neil to create a monthly Twitter chat about the state of blogging that would take us all the way to New York to lead a panel discussion at a BlogHer conference.
• I would take to public speaking the way I did when I took the stage at TEDxRegina to talk about self doubt and the power of personal narrative:
  
• This blogging community would grow from my handful of virtual penpals into such a powerful webwork of human beings that were able to help me grow the confidence it took to deal with cancer, quit smoking, face my alcoholism, and work through bouts of anxiety and depression.

I don't know if you are truly aware of the power that you all have together, but this community, beginning with the Palinode, has given me my life.

This is not hyperbole. Look at that list up there of all the things that have come to pass in my life because of all of us hanging out here together in the ether we call the Internet. Sure, it hasn't all been wine and song here. I was invited to die in a pool of blood once by an extra thoughtful commenter, and there was that guy who expressed displeasure that my site did not live up to the dirtiness my name implied and suggested I send him just a little something to make up for it. The creeps and assholes, though — true stalkers and violent/sexual offenders aside — are just the colour that spice up this little constellation we've built together.

The path of my entire life has been altered and moulded here, and I cannot find the words to impress upon you the magnitude of this. My entire life is another thing now because of this place.

My father, a man who barely understands how to open an email let alone play solitaire on a computer, turned to me a month or so ago and said The internet has been good for you, hasn't it? It's changed you. It's good to see you happy and doing things you love to do. He doesn't really understand what I do here, but he see its effects on me. I answered by telling him about all of you.

It's you I want to thank for these nine years. You left comments, you wrote emails, you told me I could do it when I thought I couldn't, you told me to rest when I was tired, you told me to get off my ass when I was being an ass, you hired me, you loved me, you passed me tissues at conferences, you set me straight when I went too far, and you lured me out when I didn't go far enough.

Thank you all for these nine years. You — yes, even you who is just itching to tell me which grammar rule I've broken this time — are why I will be here for nine more.

Thank you.

Me at Aiming Low: December Babies Need Some Extra Loving Right Now. Give Us A Hand. And Some Cake.

"December Babies Need Some Extra Loving Right Now. Give Us A Hand. And Some Cake.":

Do you want to know what I would also like for my birthday? I want you to go out of your way to remember the other late December babies languishing out there in the post-Christmas/pre-New Year's malaise.