Happy 17th Anniversary to Let Life Happen

Next Friday, 0n January 22^nd, will celebrate the 17th anniversary of my writing this weekly blog.  Now while to many this may not seem to be any big accomplishment, it truly is a major milestone for me.  The main reason is that when I came to this task, I didn’t think that I wanted to do it but my husband, Kirk, kept insisting that I do so and he made me an offer that I couldn’t refuse.  If I did the writing, he would build and maintain the website for me.

“So I want to thank you so very much to every single one of you who has connected with me during the past 17 years.  You have made more of a difference in my life than you will ever know and I am eternally grateful.”Barbara Jacoby

Looking back now, I can’t believe how much I have changed over the years as a result of this undertaking.  How things have taken a different direction from what I conceived at that time.

In the beginning, I began to write about some very special people who had subsequently passed away from Kirk’s and my life in rapid succession with the fourth one being my younger brother who died on the operating table during his 14^th cancer-related surgery, just 4 weeks before my own scheduled surgery. I think that may have been the turning point for me. I wanted, in fact, I needed to keep writing in order to keep my focus on something other than my own situation.  And the more I wrote, the more I was rewarded with not only a sense of accomplishment but also to an awakening that I had buried deep inside of myself the 10 years of domestic abuse that I had endured and that needed to be resurrected and addressed.

My original thinking was that once I had finally reached the end of my reconstruction surgery and recovery, I would stop writing.  However, I have made so many new “friends” on the social networks who by telling me how much they appreciated what I was doing and how much they needed to hear from someone who “understood” what they were going through in their own cancer and/or domestic violence battles, this was no longer an option.  Furthermore, the writing  helped me in a ways that I had never imagined.  Not only have I received so much support and encouragement from so many wonderful people whom I have never met but also the writing has helped me to dig deep down inside to discover so many more things about myself.

Therefore, I will be inaugurating my 18th year next week with a renewed spirit and the hope of making our communications with one another more meaningful than ever.  In addition, Kirk just helped me with the launch of a brand-new feature on the website titled “Share Your Story” that I hope you will check out.

So I want to thank you so very much to every single one of you who has connected with me during the past 17 years.  You have made more of a difference in my life than you will ever know and I am eternally grateful.