Writing my way out: 2020’s top posts

It’s time for my final post for 2020. I took a look back at the posts that performed the best this year, and I’m sharing them here.

Why I don’t call other women “Karen” (unless that’s their name)

Note: The “Karen” post didn’t perform all that much better than any of my other posts when I originally published it on the last Sunday of 2019 with the title of “Please don’t call me Karen.” I shared it as a comment on Medium to Gillian Sisley’s post “Being Called a Privileged White Karen on Twitter,” and that seems to have opened the page view floodgates. I published my post on Medium as “Let’s leave ‘Karen’ to those actually named that” within 24 hours of my comment on Gillian’s post, and it didn’t set the world on fire nor attract any comments.

I’m not sure that the takeaway is of any of that, but thank you, Gillian, I suppose, because more than a quarter of my pageviews in 2020 came from the link I left in your comments. (See the peak there in May?)

It’s hard to address this post concisely without writing a whole other post. I firmly believe in writing honestly about my observations. That’s what I did here. I eventually concluded after so many conversations in the comments and on social media that I didn’t succeed in saying what I really meant. It’s one of the reasons I changed the title of the original post. And that gets to my original point, whether I managed to convey it or not.

Using the term “Karen” is lazy language and — if we as white women REALLY mean it when we say we want to be better human beings — then we have no business squeezing other women into stereotypical nicknames like this.

Otherwise, here are my other nine top posts.

WestPhillyAuthor: My writing inspiration

Don’t overthink. Improvise.

Love first, teach second: A teacher’s message

Mia Sofia is changing families’ tomorrows

Dear high school student … 3 things I should have learned

Peyton Manning tried to be anonymous, but …

6 ways our marriage resembles a tree

At loose ends about my hairstylist

Switching to a new Publix? Horrors!

As I kick 2020 to the curb and close out this year of blogging, here’s my call to action.

Of course I’d love for you to visit these 10 posts. They’re the ones people have read the most, and some of them are as old as 2017.

BUT before you do that …

Please write. YOU. Please write. Even if you don’t consider yourself a “blogger” or an “author” or a “writer.” We have a world full of problems (and, to be fair, a world that still has some pretty awesome things to celebrate too).

Writing is a powerful way to process the world’s challenges and find your own path toward doing something about them. It’s why I wrote about grocery store dividers and started my path of facing white privilege by writing about it.

You might choose to crumble up the paper (or, if on screen, delete the document) after writing. You might choose to share it (feel free to do so in the comments section here or email me).

My favorite song in “Hamilton” is “Hurricane” because it’s where Alexander Hamilton talks about how “I wrote my way out.”

Your turn … what do you need to say?