Winning Streak

It’s been quite a year. So much difficult, with much good and soul-affirming in between. In two weeks time I’ll be in Florida with my entire family and I’ll be gaining a new brother-in-law. The past six months, the last time I saw many of my family members, I’ve been living for this trip. The best kind of holiday season.

In between all the moments of preparing for Florida, I’ve been managing normal life. Nannying, with Harrison in tow. Cooking, especially with my Instant Pot, violin-ing with Harrison AND Oscar, working through the emotions experienced as a result of Harrison getting bitten by a dog, and winning things!

I’m pretty good at winning things that I can work towards. Card games like Canasta and Golf, Mario Kart on Nintendo 64, amateur horse shows and audition-only orchestras when I was younger. But anything that’s up to chance has been lost on me time and time again.

Until this year!

A few months ago I won tickets to see Joshua Bell perform at the Hollywood Bowl. Granted, I did work for that one by writing about my favorite mistake, but it still felt slightly up to chance to me. A few weeks ago I won a contest sponsored by Patagonia and Garden of Life, just by using coupons on the Sprouts app while grocery shopping. I’ve yet to receive my Patagonia backpack full of Garden of Life products, but I filled out the necessary paperwork and am very excited about it.

And then yesterday I received an email informing me that I won the opportunity to write to the Listserve!

The Listserve is an email subscription list that sends everyone on it one email per day. The email is from another subscriber, chosen by a computer at random, who can write about anything, knowing that it will be sent to tens of hundreds of thousands (over a million? I can’t find the current number) of people across the globe. I have been a subscriber since the first email on April 18, 2012. I’ve read almost every single email I’ve received. It’s been so interesting to read other people’s stories, learn about their lives and passions, or learn something new, or be lectured on any number of things, or gain insightful advice.

Never did I expect to receive an email with the subject heading “You’ve won The Listserve!” I sat and stared at that email for a moment, checked to see if it was legit or possibly spam, realized it was valid and true, pulled up a new document and wrote “Hello world.” And then I sat staring at those two words for the better part of a half hour, and mulled over them the rest of the day. I had no idea what to say.

Last night I sat on the couch with the same document open, and I started free writing about my passions. There are many things that I care about and I decided I want other people to learn about them, and maybe through this I can connect with some of those who are like-minded or at least people who want to further the conversation.

My submission is almost complete and it’s pretty simple. A few small paragraphs about a few of my biggest passions. No life-changing information or ground-breaking advice, just a small sliver of who I am in this world. It’ll be sent out in a few days; if you’re interested in reading it go over to The Listserve website and subscribe. (They’re for real about only one email per day and no spam.) And if you’re reading this post a few days from now because you found this blog through my Listserve email, thank you for taking the steps to find me and please feel free to let me know you’re here!