Bloggy bliss

Bliss. If you look it up in the dictionary - as I just did - you'll find something like, "Supreme happiness; ultimate joy." Eating a really amazing dessert has made me feel blissful, for example.

For the rest of this week, I'll be at the Blissdom conference learning about fun stuff Ike photography and life planning and being a better writer. When I signed up, my intent was to go by myself, learn a lot, and spend some quality relaxation time at a nice hotel - I hadn't planned to make a ton of new blog friends nor had I planned to move outside my little comfort zone of solitude and introspection, but that's exactly what's happened.

I think it started on Twitter about a month ago with the excited "Blissdom newbie" messages. I tried to resist the happy, open, blissful nature of these women I'd never met. I'm old, I don't have little children, and my blog isn't blinged out and perfect. Slowly but surely, thought, they wore me down. I think it started with Heather, who was going to be my roommate until my funky scheduling issues - up early, to bed early - made her think twice. What a sweet girl! And the tweeting with Heather led to my meeting others, like Deanna, who picked me up on her way to the airport this morning, and Jessica who is tapping away on her iPad in the middle seat between Deanna and I.

Suddenly I'm on Facebook and email checking for the latest posts in the Blissdom Newbie group and overpacking my suitcase with a crazy amount of shiny, sparkly objects and looking forward to having dinner with a bunch of women I've never met. Who is this person and where's the real me?

However you define bliss for yourself, I hope that you - like me - have the opportunity to experience it first hand this week: it's good for your soul in ways you might not even realize and we all need to reach out and touch it as often as we can.