It is October 2010. I am 24. I have returned from Canada and I am sad. I am unemployed, and work has just got hard to find. So I have decided to do what I always do in these situations.
I blog.
I decide to keep in touch with faraway friends by making a new facebook group to email en masse. And it’s a success.
Unlike my day working for the Chinese boss.
Or my experience as an extra in a show one day remade with Rich Fulcher.
The group loves it, and I receive e-mails telling me that my writing style is good. My Brother even recalls my first ever message from my first ever trip to Canada asking if Calgary airport was the past? Or Jurassic park? Or a cabaret night? Or all three?
I have a skill!
I am excited, because no job, girlfriend, guitar or possible ways to get to Canada have made me feel rubbish. But suddenly, I am back in the game. I have something I can do.
I’m such a beast.
—
It is a year and a half later, and I have been writing blogs on an official blog website for ages. I am at uni, and have decided to run for school rep. I am asked to write a manifesto.
I sigh.
And do what I always do in these situations.
I blog.
I write a blog that wins me the election! And the Wolves Uni Student Union gives me a certificate for a unique award.
‘Most creative and entertaining manifesto’.
I smile.
An award-winning blog writer!
—
It is 2015, and I have completed uni. I have nursed a budding career, and I have got married. Life has changed. I have been to Canada two more times. I have a guitar again. An unobtainable Avalon Silver Series!
I smile. And look at my contented wife as she watches a sweet but terrible Christmas movie.
I grin.
I’m such a beast.
And I know it.
I don’t need the blog any more.
I sigh.
I love the blog. But can’t publish stories from work. And work does seem to happen to me all the time now that I have it. It is Christmas Eve, and I have some great stories that are all so classified. Yet I haven’t published a Christmas blog this year.
I sigh.
Heavily.
And decide to do what I always do in these situations.
I accidentally poke my wife in the eye!
Oh no!
I sigh. And can do only one thing.
I stop blogging.
—
So there it is folks. I’ve been thinking about this for a little while. Five years of variable speed blogging, and in the end this blog reached over 7000 hits and over 100 blogs. To you the reader, I say thank you for giving me an audience. Someone to entertain. Someone to make me feel like I had a blog-based superpower when I had some roughness going on offline. I may blog again. I doubt this finale will be forever. But for the foreseeable future, I won’t be blogging regularly. So, it’s pretty much the end.
Not very upbeat for a Christmas special. I know, right? But here’s my Christmas gift to you.
No one told me I could write.
Well. No. My Brother did. But I hadn’t noticed. Thing is, it turns out I had a real skill I didn’t know about, and by trying I ended up making myself very proud. Even won an award! So look at yourself. If you feel like you’re having a rough time, or whatever, know this:
You’ve got skills left to find.
So go make yourselves proud. Someone might even make an award for you.
Merry Christmas everyone.
And I love that picture I made of Housemate That Never Was Dan Mac and Rick Grimes my old kayak-lifting pal.
But not as much as those shoes. You look great.
Dan
PS. I think you missed some good jokes in those blogs, you should probably go back and read them all in a row. Just a great idea off the top of my head.
I'm Dan! And I Blog The News! 