Seriously, So Kursed ... 'n Stuff

(Click here if you are unfamiliar with "Seriously, So Blessed")

Last night I blog surfed until midnight. It was unintentional, I promise.

I was searching for images of metal railing and I clicked for 3 seconds on a blog post of a girl, obviously Mormon. It was a picture in a hospital lobby dated July 2007. That was three years ago. I had to see how it all turned out. I was off mom-duty and the dish washer was humming, "You deserve this, you cooked three meals, you cleaned the kitchen, you deserve this, you just keep surfing, you deserve this". (Raise your hand if you know exactly what I am talking about here.)

There's a feeling early on when you've hit a good vein of 20-something LDS "joyful tragedy" blogs. Nine times out of ten, the more wall paper, music and ALL CAPITAL LETTERS when that first page loads -- the sadder the beautiful patchwork story. Then you sit there ... with a bag of microwave popcorn ... watching the blog post roll out backwards. It's like watching a house on fire ... only in reverse ... starting with the 40 foot flames of personal tragedy ... usually a baby ... or four... and ending up with the perfect engagement picture.

It's a spectator sport.

Stop me if you've read this one: "I love wakin' up at 4:30 am to run the 10 miles in the snow to the NICU. (Got to get that pre-baby bod back!!!) Just love pumping for my pre-term twinners. Born at 21 weeks, my baby boy and girl (Chantz - the boy and Ashyr - the girl) are lit'l champs. Then I head upstairs to ICU. My daddio-patio is a big champ!! At 47 years old, nobody thought he would pull threw. Surprise, he just finished up his third round of flesh eating virus and a couple of open heart surgeries. Oh, yeah ... that huge cyst on my husband's frontal lobe looks way better after a couple of MRIs. They don't know what it is, but at least they know what it isn't."

(I have resisted the temptation to post the links, but if you email me I'll send them to you... they're seriously so real, I promise.)

It's a rough world out there with really upbeat people. Are Mormons more likely to blog their hardships than other religions? Is it like sending a picture with the wedding invite -- something only we do? I'm not making any of this up, even the preterm baby names. (Asher for a girl??) And I don't mean to make fun of anyone either. They are simple people in very difficult circumstances, and they really have positive attitudes. They're everyday Saints. And they blog because talking positively about their lives helps them to feel better about their lives.

Then I clicked one of these girls' random "friends" links. (For rill it was someone named Tam R.S.) Guess who was in the first picture of the most recent post ... my kid in his kindergarten duck costume.

It is all around us, people -- all around us.