baltimoreblackwoman

Ten years ago, today (December 27, 2024), I uploaded my first post for this blog on the WordPress platform.

After retiring from my job in June 2013, months before my 60th birthday, I became a fulltime caregiver for my mother, who had been diagnosed with stage 1 lung cancer. Being a caregiver was a more difficult and intense job than I could have imagined—a reversal of mother-daughter roles, in effect. A year and a half into this job, I needed an outlet—not just to write, as I’d always done, mostly in journals, but to communicate with others what I was feeling, thinking, doing, and learning. But it wasn’t just my personal life that I was grappling with; it was also the fraught era in which we were living: the United States had elected, and re-elected, its first Black President, Barack Obama; and racial issues were heating up in ways I hadn’t experienced before.

I made the decision to start the blog on my 61st birthday in October of 2014, after connecting with a former coworker and friend, Rus VanWestervelt, who had also begun writing a blog. With his encouragement, I signed up for a website and domain. After two months of studying the platform, deciding what I wanted to write about, and designing my site, I was ready to embark on my new endeavor.

The common denominator in all of my blog writings has been my life as a Black woman born and raised in Baltimore, encompassing my history, my experiences, my culture and society, and, most of all, my family, who taught and guided me throughout my life. As it turns out, my mother, who was one of the most important protagonists, champions, and heroes of my essays, poems, and stories over the past decade, gave me the greatest gift I could have ever received: her love, faith, and trust in me, her oldest child and only daughter.

It wasn’t until after my mother’s death in 2018, as my brother and I sorted through all her belongings, that I discovered the depth of her belief in me. Among her meticulously filed papers was a manila folder containing double-sided printouts of every one of my blog posts from December 27, 2014 to December 31, 2015! They are the only existing evidence of the original design and layout of the blog.

The world has changed radically since 2014. You, the reader, can trace many of these external changes through my writings. But I, too, have changed. I used to write everything longhand, first, and typed my words into my home PC. I switched to using a tablet, because it was lightweight and portable. Now, I can just as easily use my cellphone to write, I prefer the tablet. And, while many writers have switched to other platforms like Substack, I still feel comfortable using WordPress. Nor am I ready to use Artificial Intelligence to “aid” or “improve” my writing.

I’m also a decade older. At 71, I’m entering the Elder phase of life—physically less robust and energetic, and more concerned about my health issues. At the same time, though, I still have life lessons to share, and many more lessons to learn. So, as long as I am able, I will continue to write.

Thank you, readers, for your support, encouragement, and friendships. None of this would be possible without you!

Cheers to the Next 10 Years of baltimoreblackwoman!