When Good Morning America Calls
Yeah, So, Good Morning America Called… You write a blog without thinking too much about it. You post it and suddenly it takes off. It’s getting shared and liked all over Facebook. Your friends are talking about it. It gets 20,000 likes/shares from just your friends sharing it on FB. You suddenly get the power of social media. Then you send it to the Huffington Post, thinking maybe they might want it. They do! They hold it for the front page and highlight it. It goes live and, of course, you are sitting on a sideline of a lacrosse game. You freak out. You drive home and take a zillion screen shots of the thing. Then you worry that no one is liking it or sharing it. Your husband tells you to chill out. You hate to be told to chill out, but concede he’s right.
And then two days later you fly to a dream vacation to celebrate your 20 Year Anniversary. You have specifically chosen a place to unplug and relax. You only have Wifi in your room. While you are there your blog goes crazy, wacky viral. You get a dozen emails a day asking for permission to publish it on sites around the world. France and Germany Huff Posts pick it up. You can’t read the emails they send you because you don’t speak French or German. You trust that it’s on the up and up. You drink a ton of piña coladas to celebrate. You try to be cool about the fact that this is all happening and stay unplugged. Magically, and because you are in fucking paradise, you do.
Then you get an email from a producer at Good Morning America. You don’t believe it’s legit, so you look him up on Linkedin. It’s legit. They want to come to your house and film you and your family for a segment on your blog. What the what??? You tell them you are in the British Virgin Islands and bum out that you will miss this huge opportunity. He laughs and says, they will wait for you to get back. Then asks for the exclusive. The exclusive? Who are you? You are a rock star…that’s who. You are amazing. The world’s greatest blogger of all time. You are on top of the world. You believe that for like 2 seconds. But it’s a really, really great 2 seconds.
You come home after a week in paradise to a crew from Good Morning America in your driveway. You give them at 45 minute interview where you are charming and witty. You are sure they will ask you to join their morning show as a correspondent because you are America’s sweetheart. Screw Katie Couric…you are the new “it” girl. This lasts 1 second.
Then it airs. You are relatively horrified by how your hair looks and that they took the angle of dun…dun…dun…Is being the Default Parent ruining your marriage? You freak out. You are inconsolable. You can only watch it once. You call for back up and get all your friends who happen to be licensed therapist involved. You think that it’s no accident you are friends with lots of women who are also therapists. You learn that you are unable to process success and let the amazingly lovely things people said about your blog and writing sink in for more than 10 seconds. You realize, like everyone other creative person who hits on something, that you are unprepared to be good at anything. You worry you will never have another success.
Then you chill the fuck out and realize that what happened was kind of amazing. That you wrote a blog that people around the world are talking about. That Good Morning America anchored a segment on your blog. That you started a conversation. You finally come to understand that it was cool it all happened, but it’s just a passing thing and the thing that you have to do is keep writing. You are okay with the fact that most of your blogs will be read by your loyal few and it will be the one you don’t expect that goes somewhere again. You grow. You learn. You decide that you are enough and you will do what you always do, what you can’t stop doing even if you want to…you write.
M.
Check it out! Click the Links Below…
The Default Parent on The Huffington Post
The Default Parent on Good Morning America
