Good morning, May!
Turning over a new leaf this month & connecting with you more.
And good morning, to you.
How are you doing these days? Are you happy, healthy & whole?
I'm doing well. I’m thankful for not falling victim to springtime allergies, but I know others are struggling with them, and I’m so sorry.
(I’m not going to try & tell you to look on the bright side of it, because honestly, I don’t know what the bright side of it is — except maybe that it’s only temporary.)
But I think distractions can be beneficial to help get your mind onto something better. So here you go…
An Email from Me
I can’t believe April has come & gone with nary a written word from me. I’m sorry. (I did think of you, though — and I even saw some of you.)
I have a love-hate relationship with the month of April.
I love it because it’s the month of my birthday! And I’m all about celebrating life!
I just turned 56, and I’m happy about it — I’ll take every year I can get! ;)
(The picture above was taken at a favorite restaurant where my family went to celebrate the occasion.)
This year I was able to spend the bulk of that day with my cousin who came to visit from out of town.
She & I have always been very close on the heart level, yet we have always lived physically apart from one another (save for one year when I was 8 years old, and we lived in the same city).
We used to write letters back & forth as kids when we were less than an hour from each other. And then I moved halfway across the country (to go to college) for four years.
And then after I moved back home, she moved several states away. And then I moved far from home for a new job that brought me closer to her, but still a state away.
We continued to see one another for the several years I lived there. But then I moved halfway across the country again to take a chance on love — and won. (That’s where my husband lived when I met him online in 2000.)
By then the rest of my family were all living in the same state as she was, so I planned to have our wedding there. She was my Matron of Honor & her daughter was my Flower Girl — although she was more like a Junior Bridesmaid by that point.
My husband & I eventually moved back to the East Coast after the birth of our daughter to be near my parents & sisters, and we were all back in the same state again.
While I didn’t see my cousin nearly as much as I wanted to over the past 20 years, we did stay in touch, and I’m so glad we did.
I’m so grateful for our relationship. (Why? Well, for one, she accepts me for who I am — “as is”. And she never abandoned me when everyone else in my family did.)
She’s like a sister to me and a best friend. And I’m just so glad we didn’t let the miles that separated us keep us apart through all that we’ve each been through over the past half-century.
How about you? Do you have a family member or childhood friend that you’ve kept in touch with despite the twists & turns your respective lives may have taken? (Tell me about it!)
Human Connections
I’ve been paying a lot of attention, time & energy lately thinking about human connections and wanting to foster more personal relationships with the people I’ve come in contact with and/or gotten to know through various ways & means.
For the past several months I’ve been working on remodeling WiggleCulture.com —the website that my husband & I have had for many years. And my attention has been focused on trying to make online human connections wherever I can. Not to just reach out offering information, opinions & products, but to reach back to people who are offering me information, opinions & products and make a connection.
I have spent over twenty years operating from home — and living much of it online (given that’s where our businesses have always been, and eventually that’s where I had to go to find a social connection).
But at the end of the day, when I transition from one screen to another (from the computer monitor to the TV), I think to myself, this is not right. We were not designed to live this way. I need to make a change. Not just for myself, but for my family’s sake and for the sake of all the other human beings out there who feel & are physically disconnected.
So, for me, 2025 is the year of fostering human connections — near & far.
And this month, I’m going to challenge myself to do things a little differently with this Substack / email newsletter thingy.
My May Human Connection Challenge
For the next several weeks, I’m going to wake up each morning (Monday - Friday) and greet you via my keyboard and your email inbox, as if I just walked into work for the day, and you were physically working alongside me. (Those greetings will be much briefer than this one, I promise.)
And I hope you’ll return the greeting, and we can actually connect with one another.
Let’s see if we can strike up a friendly human connection for this very merry month of May — despite the distance and the screens that separate us.
What do you think? ← That was not a rhetorical question. I really want to know what you think. Please write or message me back and tell me. :) Thanks!
As for the hate side of my relationship with the month of April…
That can be summed up in one word: Taxes!
(I was going to say, “I’m glad that’s over”, but the truth is it’s never over, is it? That is, unless we do something about it, which is another project of mine that I’m working on this year. But I’ll save that story for another day.)
Well, there you go. I hope this distraction was a pleasant one. :)
Thank you for your time & attention, and I hope to hear back from you soon.
Meanwhile, have a great day!
Sincerely,
Carrie (not Kelly)
PS. If you’re looking to connect more with folks yourself, you might find this resource helpful (I did!): The HEARTSPOKEN Note | Elizabeth H. Cottrell | Substack