Written by C. Diva

The hunt is almost over. Teams have a little over 24 hours to upload and complete as many tasks as possible on Misha’s 2017 Gish-list, and then this weird, wonderful experience will be done for good. Even though I hadn’t planned to Gish this year, falling back into the routine of doing kind and strange activities in the name of the Overlord has been cathartic at the end of a very hectic summer. Waking up in the morning to do my dream journal entry makes me laugh every single time, and I’m a little mortified that the Spaniard is going to get that peek into my psyche as she edits my ramblings, because my dreams are weird. I baked spicy chocolate cookies with my daughter and a teammate, that we passed out to firemen before heading to a local animal shelter to get cat and dog hair all over us and try to get those furbabies adopted. Today, I took a solo drive down to the coast to commune with the Pacific Ocean and apologize profusely to Sweden (it’s a Gish-thing) and enjoyed watching the fog break over Newport Beach in the early hours of morning.

Needless to say, it’s been a week.

https://twitter.com/collectivadiva/status/895448245790400512

Still, I’m going to miss GishWhes. I keep thinking ahead, to the itch that will hit me this time next year, after SDCC, right before school starts for the kiddos–the Gish-itch (gitch?) and I, selfishly, don’t want to give this up. Sometimes, it takes something BIG like GishWhes to remind me to be kind, not only to strangers, but to my friends, my family, myself. I wonder what can we do, as a fandom, to keep the spirit of GishWhes alive? Can we put together a list, and teams, complete over 200 tasks, donate thousands of dollars and change lives in eight days? In my heart, I hope that we can carry the values and pass them along all year long, even without GishWhes to push us. I think, if I’ve learned anything while doing GishWhes, you and I, our friends, our family, are all able and willing to do more than we might initially believe. We can go out of our comfort zones, we can be kind to a stranger, we can achieve goals that we never thought possible, if we really want to. I challenge you, dear reader, to remember your achievements, big and small, and carry them with you; let them motivate you in times of darkness. Never forget–you are strong, you are able, you are GishWhes.