I have a confession to make:
I almost backed out of taking over this blog for
the month of December.
When I found out late last year that Causes and
Effect creator Melinda Newman was looking for 12 individuals to take over the
reins of the blog in 2015, I was quick to throw my name into the ring. And I
was incredibly excited when I got picked to be one of the blog's writers for a
whole month. The only downside was that I was assigned to December and had to
wait almost a whole year before I could dive into writing.
Then life happened.
Despite being grossly underemployed for the second
year in a row, 2015 was a great year for me. But the lack of a decent income
reared its ugly head around mid-year when a series of unfortunate events
started to happen. At times I felt a bit like Lemony Snicket.
First the washing machine broke. Not surprising,
really, since it came with the house when we bought it ten years ago, and it
had probably been in the house at least ten years before that. Buying a new one
was inevitable. While we were at it, my wife and I decided to splurge and buy a
matching dryer, too. After all, the dryer was also pretty ancient, and we had
never bought a brand new washer or dryer before. So forking over the
money for a shiny pair of appliances wasn't that painful.
Speaking of pain, as 2015 went along I started
waking up with a sore back and neck with some regularity, which I attributed to
the fact that our mattress was about 15 years old. So my wife and I opened up
the checkbook to buy a new mattress and foundation.
See, that's the problem when you age: everything
you own ages, too. And it needs replacing. Like our gas range,
which decided to die in the middle of baking a batch of oatmeal raisin cookies
in late October. And the custom canvas awnings above our front and side doors
that got shredded in a November wind storm and had to be replaced. Again, these
were things that came along with the house and had just worn out. (For what
it's worth, I had no idea that awnings could be so damn expensive.)
Things settled down a bit until some annoying
episodes of atrial fibrillation--an irregular heart rhythm--started kicking my
ass. After almost 18 years of having that condition kept in check by
medication, I decided to have a catheter ablation done on my heart to try and
fix the problem permanently. Because we buy our own health insurance, which has
a pretty high deductible, that procedure ended up costing us quite a bit
out-of-pocket. It was definitely well worth it, but it was also another
unexpected expense incurred in 2015.
Lastly, just to put some icing on the proverbial
cake, my wife and I bought a second car late in the year. Having one car is
something we've done for a long time, but sometimes it's a bit inconvenient. So
when the opportunity to buy a 2007 Ford Focus that a friend of ours was selling
at a ridiculously good price presented itself, we figured what the hell.
(Believe it or not, the car was the cheapest of all the purchases I've
mentioned in this post.)
Now back to my concerns about this blog. It wasn't
the writing that I was worried about; it was the money. Because the idea behind
Causes and Effect isn't only to write
about charities and good causes, it's to donate
to them, too. At least $10.00 a day times 31 days meant that my family would be
spending at least another $310.00 during the month of December (which is more
than we paid for the Focus!).
I wondered if I should just throw in the towel and
tell Melinda that I couldn't do the blog. Surely she'd understand. And it
wasn't like she wouldn't be able to find somebody else to do it, right? But
something inside of me told me to stick with it.
There are two things I know about money:
1. It really isn't everything.
2. There's always somebody who needs it more than
you do.
I think that's the essence of the Causes and
Effect blog. The idea that giving, even if it sometimes hurts a little, is the
most incredibly rewarding thing you can do. Knowing that you are helping others
and making a difference, no matter how small, just makes you feel good.
Writing the Causes and Effect blog this month has
been one of the most amazing, gratifying things I've ever done. It's taught me
so much, not just about writing--like how hard it is to sit down and write a
reasonably meaningful piece every single
day--but about life. I’m so glad I didn't back out of this wonderful
opportunity.
Thanks to Melinda Newman (and Brian Mansfield) for
having faith in my ability to take care of this blog for 31 days. Hopefully I've done a decent job. And a very special thanks to my wife, Kathy, for her
willingness to let Causes and Effect become an integral part of our lives for
the month of December. I couldn’t have done it without her.
Now let's just hope the refrigerator, dishwasher,
and furnace behave themselves for a while longer.
"Gratitude
begins in our hearts and then dovetails into behavior. It almost always makes
you willing to be of service, which is where the joy resides....When you are
aware of all that has been given to you, in your lifetime and the past few
days, it is hard not to be humbled, and pleased to give back." --Anne Lamott
