Butt pats and blog love

I often write blog posts the night before and set them to go live at 2:30 a.m.

I went to bed after writing the lousiest blog post I’ll ever write and lay there fretting.

Was it OK to share so much? How would people react?

I woke in a panic a few hours later and grabbed my iPhone. I get an email every time someone comments here, and though the post had only been up an hour, I was nervous.

And then I was overwhelmed. By kindness and compassion and humor and love from people I’ve never met in my life.

I’ll admit it, I bawled. My mom emailed to say she’d gone through an entire box of Kleenex reading the comments.

My brother called that evening. “You’re like a cult with all those people saying nice shit about you,” he said. “If it means your books will make a lot of money, how much do I get if you die?”

Thank you for that. For making my mom cry and my brother plot my untimely demise.

Your support and wisdom and laughter and friendship gave me more strength in a single day than I could get from a lifetime of steroid use (and without the unfortunate growth of facial hair and testicles).

When I began confiding in people about my crumbling marriage, I think you all held a secret meeting. Never mind that most of my friends and family and online pals have never met each other. I’m certain a major planning session took place.

“OK, so who’s offering her helpful encouragement?” someone yelled.

“I am. How about butt pats and wine drinking?”

“Over here. Anyone doing tough love?”

“Check. Male bashing?”

“Got it. Who’s going to make her laugh?”

“I'm on it. How about feeding her so she consumes more than red wine and asparagus spears?”

And on and on, until all my needs were met by an entire army of loved ones.

Well, not all my needs (though author pal Jeffe Kennedy gave it a damn good try with vivid tales of my new millionaire husband, Xavier, and the sensual tricks he learned in Thailand).

Where was I?

Right.

Friendship. Support. Kindness. I thank you all from the bottom of my heart for giving me that in spades through your blog comments and private emails and tweets and Facebook messages and mental telepathy (though whoever that was with the image of the nipple clamps and the oatmeal, the restraining order is in the mail).

When blogging experts talk about the importance of building community, this is what they mean. I don’t get credit for that, you do.

Thank you.

Xavier and I are eternally grateful.