Dear 2000 Jodi,

Hey you! You’re never going to guess what 2025 Jodi did today. She? We? I? made an appointment at a Seating Clinic. Did you know that was a thing? Neither did I, but apparently it’s what you gotta do to get a better wheelchair. Also, we need a wheelchair.

I know! We’re only 53, but the 2020s have not been kind to us. However, you’ve kept this blog going for 25 years. How rad is that?

While I have your attention you 28-year-old ding dong, let me drop a little bit more wisdom I’ve gained over the years. I know you’re screeching, Don’t tell me what to do. I’m gonna try anyway

1. You worry too much about men loving you. It doesn’t matter. They will love you in the best way possible, maybe not always the way you want or when you want, but they will. Love you.
2. Stop ignoring your body. You’re gonna have a stroke when you’re 50 and it’s gonna suck.
3. And while we’re at it, stop with the all lowercase thing. We get it, e.e. cummings, you’re sensitive and literary. You’re also embarrassing your future self. Knock it off.
4. Your stroke is gonna make typing and seeing and reading really really hard. Type more while you can. Some day you’re gonna dictate these blog posts into a Notes app and each paragraph ends with “paragraph no no new paragraph no.”
5. Yeah, there is a five. “There is no five” was fucking annoying. I’m glad you knocked that off years ago.
6. That stupid blog you start when you’re smoking cigarettes in Prior Lake is going t change your life. It’s going to get you up for a career in marketing and freelancing. It’s gonna go on for 25 fucking years and bring the absolute best people into your life. It is your life‘s work.
7. I got some bad news. Grammu died. So did our dad. Uncle Danny died. Uncle George died. So did all dad’s brothers. Jodi Hanson‘s mom. Betty died and so did Burger boy. A lot of people died. Your heart breaks 1 million billion times and yet you go on. You love harder than you ever have before. It’s fucking amazing .
8. 2020 is gonna suck and 2021 and then your dad‘s gonna die and then you’re gonna have a stroke so buckle up, buttercup. It’s gonna be a bumpy ride. You’re gonna be fine.

Listen up 2020, 28-year-old Jodi, I know you’re one lonely motherfucker. Here’s the thing, you haven’t met all the people you’re gonna love yet. Here in 2025 you have so many people you love who love you right back. It’s bewildering and amazing. The hold you up in your darkest, bleakest times and rive you the strength to go on when life takes a hard left.

It’s all good and beautiful. You need that reminder right now. Not only do you have to go to a seating clinic, you gotta find a Social Security attorney. The government won’t let you on the dole. It’s a whole thing I won’t get into now. It will probably work out. Something will happen.

Love you, ding dong,
2025 Jodi

P.S. Darling Ones, I legit need a Social Security attorney. The government denied my appeal and so I can’t get any further in the process alone. Know anyone or where to look? Thanks! XOXO, Jodi

The post I Will Dare’s Silver Jubilee appeared first on I Will Dare.

Hi Darling Ones,

Last night I had a conversation with my friend, Em, about writing, writing habits, and routine. It was a great talk and we vowed in the new year to establish a routine and hold each other accountable. I’m excited, because I want to work on my writing and my penmanship.

I’ve been woefully lax on the physical practice of writing. I’m easily frustrated with the tremor and my Floppy Scoop gets tired fast when gripping a pen. However, I really miss writing. I miss jotting down ideas in my planner, which I abandoned early this year due to the poor penmanship.

While talking about writing I confessed to her that I’m always scared before clicking publish on an I Will Dare post.

“Still?” she asked, a little incredulous. “After all these years?”
“Hell, yeah,” I said. “It’s never not scary to put yourself out there.”

I don’t know what was more surprising: that I admitted it or that she was so shocked.

Then I explained to her just because it looks easy doesn’t mean it is easy. Putting your thoughts and feelings out into the world in any way always feels a little dicey. Putting them onto the Internet in the same place, an easy-to-find and reference place, for TWENTY-FOUR years feels like both utter foolishness and extreme bravery.

I mean, come on, is there any body worse than the you from five, ten, fifteen, twenty years ago? Ugh. Not to me. Past-Jodi was insufferable and so annoying. Thankfully, I’ve grown, learned more, and do better now. And since this is an ongoing process, old me will always be a little bit worse than present me.

Still, it’s scary! What if people don’t get it? What if I fail at getting my point across? What if nobody cares? What if everyone cares? What if I hurt/anger/befuddle someone? What if I look stupid?

No matter how many times I hit “publish” I still worry. I will always worry, but I’ll always do it because I want to. There is value in what I have to say, in my existence on this planet and in this moment.

The TTHM use to tell me that I should do something scary every day, and boy, howdy, do I ever. Do I ever.

Your favorite fraidy cat,
Jodi

The post Still Scary After All These Years appeared first on I Will Dare.

Well, well, well, Darling Ones,

Today is the 40th anniversary of “Let it Be” (The Replacements’ version), which contains the song “I Will Dare,” which happens to be the greatest side one, track one of all time.

ALL TIME!

If I were better at seeing into the future I’d have saved a few thoughts brought on by the 28th Anniversary of The ‘Mats’ ‘Let it Be’ for a more monumental anniversary. Even twelve years into my blogging career I couldn’t predict I’d make it twenty-four years. Though to be fair, forty years in, what more can be said about “Let it Be?” I’m sure there are forty GenX guys who got paid to pontificate on the significance of this record, but lord knows none of us need more GenX guys yammering on about The Replacements.

You’ve heard the song before, right? Give it a listen. It’s sonic joy. A few years I had a very cranky reader complained that she finally listened to it and hated the song. That’s neither here nor there, but just something I was thinking about.

I’ve been failing to adequately explain to the Internet why this song for twenty-four years.

It’s not the first Replacements’ song I heard. That was “Merry Go Round” as documented in Jim Walsh’s All Over But the Shouting.

And on a pretty regular basis it’s not even my favorite ‘Mats’ song. Some days it’s “Can’t Hardly Wait” and others it’s “If Only You Were Lonely.” However, if you ask me what my all-time favorite song is I often say “I Will Dare.”

It is for-sure, with zero doubt the one song guaranteed to make me smile. Usually my body recognizes the song before my brain does and my heart starts to beat a little faster, my blood feels zingier in my veins, and then I start to smile. I say to myself, without fail, “I love this song” every time I hear it. Why not this song?

I can tell you there are way worse songs/mottos to build your life around. I will dare is sometime I whisper to myself every day, especially now post-stroke. It’s a nice way to motivate myself to do something I don’t want to do or am afraid to do.

This whole letter is a little all over the place, forgive me. About halfway through writing I got hit in the face with allergies and now my head is all floaty and wooshy. But I couldn’t let this anniversary go without saying something. Who knows were I’ll be in 2029 or 2034? Still writing, I hope.

Counting the rings around my watery eyes,
Jodi

The post Why That Song? appeared first on I Will Dare.

Hey Darling Ones,

Today is the 24th Anniversary of I Will Dare(.com). The song is 40 years old. It was released in July 1994, according to Wikipedia. I’m sure I’ve remarked on the July coincidence before, but it feels like brand new information to me.

I also learned that the 24th anniversary is the opal anniversary. Feel free to send me this tiny opal kitten (or one of each color).

Usually I love to revel in I Will Dare’s anniversary and marvel at my life’s work. Chronicling your life online for twenty-four years is quite an accomplishment.

Instead of marveling and reveling, I’m mourning. Sister #2 had to put down Walter yesterday. Losing a pet, even one you only had occasional responsibility for is heartbreaking.

View this post on Instagram

A post shared by Jodi Chromey (@jodiwilldare)

Though I haven’t written about it much, I’m really trying to focus on the love and joy in my life. Walter’s death is giving me a chance to put that into practice. I’m sad that he’s gone, but I’m also happy that he can rest now.

He’s been on a steady decline for a few years now and his dementia was making him agitated. He was constantly pacing and unable to relax. Sister #2 said his decline was really noticeable when she returned to Oregon from her stay here in June, and that’s when they made the decision.

I’m so glad I got to have Walter in my life for ten years. When he was here over Christmas he could still recognize me and I got to say to him, “Hey, peanut buddy, you love me. I love you. We love each other.” Then I sang him the “puppy butt” song that I made up for him. I called him my peanut buddy because he was here when I first watched “BoJack Horseman.” Walter wasn’t a Mr. Peanutbutter kind of dog, but definitely my peanut buddy.

My heart hurts today, but I know it’s bigger, better, and stronger for having loved Walter.

Here’s to another year of iwilldare.com.

Still only a little bit of heaven & a whole lot of hell,
Jodi

The post I Will Dare (.com) is 24 Years Old (The Song is 40) appeared first on I Will Dare.

Hello Darling Ones,

I write to you today for two reasons.

First, because I now refer to the recrudescence as “The Stroke Strikes Back.”

This is hilarious to me because I have not ever in all my years seen a Star Wars movie. Not any of them, and by last count there were eleventy hundred of them.

I have no interest or desire to see them. I didn’t when I was a kid and I don’t now. I get the gist of the story and all the references simply by being alive in the time of Star Wars. Same goes for Harry Potter. The Godfather. Indiana Jones. Anything to do with Hobbits (though I did have to read The Hobbit in 8th grade, and I’m still mad).

When I was a kid I had a sort of Bechdel Test before there was a Bechdel Test. If a TV show or movie didn’t have a bunch of kids or women in it, I had no interest. It’s why I hated StarTrek (the only thing on TV Sunday afternoons in the pre-cable days) and had no interest in Star Wars. It’s also why my sisters and I watched “Legend of Billie Jean” and “Grease 2” on repeat as kids.

Anyway, “The Stroke Strikes Back” is a terrible movie. Avoid at all costs.

I’ve been working on rebuilding my online portfolio (my site fell victim to a spam injection hack) and it is bumming me out. I worked so hard to build up my freelance business and it feels like it’s all gone down the drain. I opened by 1099s yesterday in reparation for doing my taxes and it was no good.

My stroke cost me $21,000+ and my taxable income for 2023 is a little over half go that.

The second reason I’m writing is because it’s Leap Day!

In the 24-year history of I Will Dare, I’ve written eight times on Leap Day. That seems like a lot because this is only the sixth Leap Day since I Will Dare’s inception, but six of them were on February 29, 2004 back before we had social media for our tiniest inane thoughts. And the last Leap Day I wrote was in 2012, when apparently the misogyny was bringing me down. So I guess that’s been happening for awhile now.

Happy Leap Day, Darling Ones. Don’t let Strokes or The Misogyny bring you down.

Love,
Jodi

The post Leap Day Confessions appeared first on I Will Dare.