This month marks a rather strange and oddly special occasion
for me: my one year blog-aversary. For exactly one year I’ve been sharing way
more than anyone ever wanted to know and the strangest part is, I’m not really
sure why.
Writing for me feels something like this. Sometimes, it is
like pouring blood from a stone or compliments from a toddler. I want it – I
want to, desperately. But I just can’t. And every word and sentence feels like
a painstaking struggle. Usually the finished product feels like a struggle to
read. And then are those times that I absolutely don’t want to write a thing. I
want to finally get in that great workout, or run to the store or do 20 other
different things and I just can’t. I literally have to write. I don’t even know
what happens. Suddenly it’s mid-morning or the middle of the night and I’m not
even sure what I’m typing or how much time is elapsing and suddenly, well it’s
as if it’s written itself.
And that kind of writing is seriously exhausting. But I’ve
been reading Brene Brown’s Daring Greatly
(and as Nicki Minaj would say – I’m obsessed with it) and she’s teaching me that
to be brave is to allow myself to be vulnerable. And there is no where that I’m
more open and vulnerable than buried deep within the nooks and crannies of
these words – whatever they do and don’t say or imply about my insecurities as
a wife, mother, friend, or citizen. To write it all down feels scary. To share
it feels like I want to vomit.
No, I mean that literally. You know that feeling that you
have right before you are going to throw up? That lump in your throat that is
welling up and you are thinking to yourself objectively, jeez, I’m so not in
the mood to vomit right now but before you can finish that concrete thought,
your head is already in the toilet. This is what it feels like every single
time I hit the share button. I am dangling over the toilet about to let loose
my dinner.
And then I talk to my really awesome partner who I am so
lucky to have found. And he reminds me that it doesn’t matter. Because I
already did the hardest part: I wrote it. The writing of it is what matters, even
if no one ever reads it or no one likes it or one person likes it or 12 people
hate it. That the writing of it, in and of itself, is what makes me brave. This
blog makes me the virtual equivalent of the tree falling in the forest. Even if
no one hears or sees me toppling over or getting back up, it still matters
because I know what I put out there, what I finally let go of.
And I am proud. I am proud that I have stuck with something
for a whole year because I am a serial quitter. I am proud that in being super
scared and vulnerable, I have become a little bit more brave. And I am also
super grateful, because everyone has a blog now. According to Disney, even dogs
have blogs. So really, I’m not so special. And people are super inundated with
random crap to read from every which way. And if you took even one minute out
of your day to read my random stuff at some point, than I’m ridiculously
grateful and humbled. So to you Dad, who’s clicked through to my site 6,975
times, thank you. And to the other 25 folks who maybe even gave me just one
precious minute of their day. Thank you from the bottom of the heart. Stay
tuned, I promise to keep trying to pour more blood from this stone with just
the right blend of random crap and nourishment to feed our souls.
good for you. thanks for sticking to this blog thing. I am happy to read it.
ReplyDeleteThanks Colton!
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