I’m so grateful our words can remind us who we were and where we’ve been, who we are and where we’re going.
– Annie B. Jones
I’ve been writing on and off on some form of blog since I was fifteen years old. I’ve never been consistent in publishing and sharing my words, but I’ve been consistent to write and journal for years. I think somewhere in my perfectionistic mindset I thought I had to be writing certain kinds of words in order for them to be worthwhile or good enough to publish for other eyes to see and read them, especially on this here internet where anything is findable no matter how long has passed since it was published. I thought that they had to be super meaningful or teach some kind of lesson or else I was only adding to the internet noise. These mindsets and thoughts have kept me from writing and posting here as much as I want to.
I’m realizing that there are only certain things that I’m responsible for when it comes to writing. I’m responsible for paying attention to my life and writing about it. I’m responsible for engaging and practicing the craft of writing, and for getting the words down and hitting publish. I’m responsible for choosing what to share and what not to, and publishing what I want to in the space I’ve claimed as mine. These things that I’m responsible for are not what I’ve been tending to, but I want that to change.
Over the last few months, I’ve been perusing and reading through blog archives of people* who used to blog A LOT more (I’m talking DAILY – how incredible). Oh, what I would GIVE to have been a young adult blogger in the 2006-2012 era. I love the lowkey and laidback style of writing and topics that would fill their blog spaces. I’m reading years-old posts that share updates on their life happenings, daily check-ins to tell a story, and essays about things they were learning. It feels like I’m getting a peek into their diaries rather than the polished, perfectly completed thoughts that tend to live on blog spaces these days (which I still love to read, but I’m here for variety, ya know?).
Time spent on other blogs is giving me a better and clearer vision of what I want mine to be and what I can hopefully turn it into. I want this space to be a capsule of my life, full of stories, thoughts, and memories that I can look back on one day to remember and reminisce, and to see where and how far I’ve come. As Rachael Kincaid puts it, “It is strange and cathartic and glorious, to scroll my own life.” Sometimes I forget that there are no rules for this blog except for the unspoken ones that live in my head and keep me from planting words here, so I’m attempting to rewrite those rules to give myself more freedom that will hopefully lead the way to more pieces on this space.
Lately, I’ve been thinking a lot about the spaces I take up and how I want to be in them, and this blog is one that I’ve been neglecting but want to see grow (and by ‘grow’ I mean have more words land here). So here I’ll be, writing and sharing as much as I can, trying not to care too much about how many or whose eyes see my words. And maybe someone who’s trying to escape from their present circumstances and life will find them to be a reprieve, a landing place to settle for a few minutes, or a place to be entertained with the lovely mundanity of my life or perplexed by my swirling thoughts. If you show up here to read what I decide to share, thank you for doing so and for coming along for the ride.
* Blog archives I’ve been enjoying: Annie Parsons, Molly Flinkman, Ashlee Gadd, Lisa Hensley, Rachael Kincaid, Lore Wilbert