Living Happily Ever After

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I Interrupt This Blog

To anyone who grew up in the 1970s-1980s: Do you remember those tests of the emergency broadcast system?

Right in the middle of a good song on the radio, or a fun television show, the song would silence or the screen would switch to a rainbow of colors and that irritating beeping noise would fill the air! It lasted forever, it seemed (to me) and then the voice would conclude the whole ordeal by thanking you for your participation. (Like we had a choice!) Then the song or t.v. show would return.

I didn’t enjoy those tests. So I apologize in advance, but I have to do the same thing to my blog.

Get ready!

BEEP!

I interrupt this blog for a very important announcement!

My blog is a bit behind the “real time” of my life. I’m trying to catch up as quickly as I can to the present day. However, something very unexpected happened recently and I can’t not share it.

Last weekend I was at a Sunday evening singles meeting. I was asked to play the organ. Over the pulpit, the man conducting the meeting thanked Andrea Merriman for helping with the music. After the program was over, as I sat waiting for the crowd to disperse so I could leave, a woman approached. She walked toward me with a huge smile and said, “Andrea Merriman!”

I looked at her, trying to place her face. She seemed very nice, but not at all familiar. My first thought was, “This person knows me! Did I grow up with her and I just don’t recognize her? Is she a friend-of-a-friend I’ve met and I can’t remember?”

But before I could place her, she clarified, “Are you Andrea Merriman of…The Blog?”

I admitted my connection to andreamerriman.com, she smiled and said, “I knew it! When they announced your name I wondered if it was you, so I had to come and meet you! I love you!” She put her arms around me and hugged me. An instant friend.

Because of a blog.

She could not have been friendlier or nicer. She gave me her name and contact information and told me we are going to do something social, as friends. I can’t believe it! It has been a long time since I’ve been invited to do something with a girl friend!

I met a new friend!

After our encounter I realized a couple of things.

First, what an amazing world blogging is! How grateful I am for the connections we make through them. To stay in touch with friends, get back in touch with old friends, and even to connect with new friends we haven’t met yet is an astounding bonus of blogging I’d never imagined.

Second, for what seems like the first time since my unexpected life began, someone said my name, Andrea Merriman. And I didn’t wince, cringe in fear, feel sick to my stomach, or want to hide! It hit me after my new friend left that I’d “forgotten” to feel afraid when someone said my name.

Somehow, I’ve been able to let go of that part of Andrea Merriman. The part I was so ashamed of for far too long as I was thrust into my unexpected life. I don’t know how, all I know is it’s gone.

The healing power of blogging is something I never expected. I guess it has been my self-therapy. Maybe putting myself out there on my terms, instead of the media, Ponzi scheme victims and hostile former clients of Shawn Merriman doing it for me, has something to do with it. (Not that they don’t have a right to be angry, I’ve just never understood their passion for persecuting me because of the actions of someone else.)

So whatever the reason, all I know is that I forgot to be afraid to be recognized. I didn’t even think to be.

I am back to the old me, the original me–Andrea Merriman.

Ironic, that they’re both spelled the same yet the feelings they engender within me are so dramatically different.

So, sorry for the interruption. Thank you for your patience. I just HAD to share that I met a blog reader! In person! A new friend!

Very unexpected.

But such a thrilling aspect of…the unexpected life!

“Nearly all the best things that came to me in life have been unexpected, unplanned by me.” (Carl Sandburg)

That night, that new friend, is certainly one of them.

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