no words for this feeling

So, as it turns out:

• Human beings are really wonderful.
• I am loved.
• This was not only not a totally crazy idea, but it’s an idea that numerous strangers have been able to latch on to.

Although the majority of the jump in my savings – denoted by the ticker in my sidebar – is due to generous help from my mother and father,* I also received more than $100 from friends and strangers yesterday that I haven’t managed to put into the ticker yet…just because the money kept coming in and coming in. And that was yesterday, a Sunday, before half the people on my email list or who read my blog have even gotten the message yet.

*I knew that both my parents would be interested in helping me achieve this goal, and probably would have given me money even if I weren’t running this whole drive with the website and all, but I sent them the mass email along with everyone else instead of asking them specifically. It’s just how I roll. They hugely surprised me by donating so much.

Other things happened, too. I sent an email about this to virtually everyone I know, including people I took a writing class with more than two years ago, and one of the women in that class has since started a business selling audio CDs of fiction. She offered to publish one of my longer stories, if it meets muster, and also offered to pay me $30 per story to critique submissions she gets. This would be intermittent, but hey, it’s money!

Also, Kathleen, the owner of my regular yoga studio, offered me a spot on her substitute list, free yoga classes for the duration, and to sell paper copies of the four stories for $10 at the studio. Wow. I wrote her back and told her I wanted to talk with her further about what was next, but I still can’t believe her generosity.

I can’t believe the generosity I’ve witnessed in the last 24 hours, period. The mentions of this thing on my blog-friends’ blogs have been so complimentary that I think they must be talking about someone else.  The owner of a publishing blog I frequent asked her readers to buy the stories as a personal favor to her. MFA agreed to forward my email to a local running club that has members in the thousands. I am just blown the hell away by all of this. I want to cry and cry, I’m so grateful, but the joy of so much good feeling directed towards me overwhelms that feeling and instead I just think my head will explode.

I should tell you that part of the reason this is so overwhelming is that it’s very, very hard for me to ask for help. Very. Yet every single time I do, the reaction from people just bowls me over. I was pretty ashamed of myself when I first came up with this idea, to ask for donations for something that I considered selfish (the training is what I want, it’s just for me), but when I came up with the trading-stories-for-money idea it seemed a bit fairer. BF told me, though, that people were going to want to donate without a trade, because what I was proposing was bettering myself and bringing something to the community (teaching). He said people always want to help when they see someone who wants to make her life better.

He was completely right.

Far from being ashamed to accept this money, what has happened over the last day has given me confidence beyond anything I can remember. I’ll grant that plenty of the strangers who have donated have just wanted to help, in general, but a good number of them are my friends, who specifically want to help me. Knowing that I, whatever I am, have inspired people to give up some of their money (even if it’s only $9), is an ultra-self-esteem builder.

I spent yesterday shaky and nervous, wanting urgently to walk away from the computer and forget for the moment about all this before it got to be obsessive, but also wanting to know who else was donating, and how much more touched my heart could get before it just stopped working. I felt like the Grinch, when his heart made the little gold cage SPROING out because it grew so big.

To all of you who bought stories/donated yesterday, who are waiting for payday to do so, or who will do so when you get around to it (no rush), THANK YOU. From the bottom of my swollen heart.