Dear Darlings,

Word has spread amongst those of us who blog…the end of the personal essay is here. I was wondering why my material had dried up. I thought it was because my kiddos were older, and I didn’t feel comfortable telling their stories, and that’s partly true. But another, bigger component, is that I stopped feeling comfortable sharing my inane, little stories when there was so much turmoil in the world. Last year’s political debacle all but silenced me. But here’s what I learned the other day when I read about the demise of personal essays. I learned that they are morphing and changing into almost exactly what I’ve been doing…

Writing personal essays with a moral at the end of the story.

From the day I started this little blog six and a half years ago (yep, you read that right SIX and a HALF years! Can you believe it?), I have tried so hard to add some moral to the end of my stories. The title started out tongue-in-cheeky…as in, I was grinding my teeth as a I spat out “Oh, for the love of God!” at my kiddos. But from the very beginning I always tried to turn that angry, spat out phrase into something positive at the end. I wanted the happy to prevail. I wanted a story with a moral. And that’s what it became.

Now that I know stories with moral clauses at the core are what readers, editors and writers want, I’m pretty sure my story telling days are no longer numbered. I’m pretty sure I have a couple more (or perhaps even hundreds more) to share. I’ve been filing them away like a squirrel preparing for winter, stuffing them into every nook and cranny I could find, hoping someday the stories that swirl around in my head had place in the world. I have to tell you, it’s quite the relief to know they still have a place to go!

Oh, for the love of my children…

xo,

Me