Confession

Greetings everyone and welcome to tonight's meeting. Before we go around the room to say our names, let us give a warm hello to a first time attender. Would you like to introduce yourself?

Hi. I'm Soccer Mom in Denial. Some folks refer to me as SMID.

I'm sorry but in these meetings we use our given names. Not our, ahem, blogging names.

Oh. Hi, I'm Allison.

[Everyone in the room] HI ALLISON!

Allison, do you want to say something else?

Um. Hi, I'm Allison and I am a blogging addict.

Ooo, we are so proud of you this evening. Coming to Bloggers Anonymous. Could you tell everyone when you realized this?

I proudly participated in the One Day of Silence (murmurs of appreciation) and made a public commitment to not post, comment or even read a blog for 24 hours. It was really hard for me to not go on my site, to check other friends' sites. Thank goodness some of my blogging buddies emailed me that day or I would've gone stir crazy because....

I'm sorry dear but you refer to "these people"as your "buddies". You consider them "friends"? You haven't even met them. How can you say that about, ahem, these people?

You know, I can. These are folks who have bothered to pay attention to the little things in my life. The life of my family. They have offered me encouragement and words of wisdom. They have found my email and shared wonderful bits of their lives. I am part of an exciting community.... [gets up from chair.... starts walking to the door....]

Some of them have been kindred spirits right away. Even on paper we were meant to know each other. Some are so completely outside who I would meet in my day-to-day life that there is no other way I could've met them accept through blogging. And all of them have made me richer.

Allison, please don't leave the room. It is time for us to officially welcome you as you begin your first day away from blogging. [The room starts to rumble as people make comments....]

Oh no. I've got too many posts in my head. And please, call me SMID.