Over the last five years (give or take), blogging has become therapeutic. When I struggled with being the mother of a newborn and three young children, I turned to the internet to fangirl and forget. When my love for books overwhelmed me, I turned to book blogging as a way of releasing all that pent up excitement. When I decided to come out of the writing closet, I started this wee blog to shared my hopes and dreams. And when my father passed away, I turned to blogging to express my grief and sorrow.
From silly to serious, brief to rambling, insane to boring, word vomiting online has provided a home for the things trapped within my brain-brain.
Is it narcissistic? Probably.
It most definitely walks a fine line between over sharing on the internet and being apart of a larger online community.
There are times when this whole blogging thing springs forth like a never ending fount of awesome. With each post, I feel more brilliant and closer to achieving the ultimate awesome. Every comment. Every blog hit. Every retweet. Pure magic.
In my heyday of blogging, (yes, there was a heyday of sorts, it was a short lived blasty blast) writing blog posts came as easy as breathing. Write 'em. Post 'em. Move on to the next big thing.
But for the most part (even mid-heyday), I've struggled with blogging, constantly doubting myself. What can I say that isn't already said? How can I be interesting? Should I ham it up, try for the laughs? Go for sappy and sickeningly sweet? Ranty and edgy? What if they don't like me? Am I too big of a dork? Shouldn't I be more professional? Is my poor grammar showing? blah. blah. blah. blah.
After five years and nearly five hundred posts (if you combined all my online endeavors), I still get nervous when I'm about to hit publish. I still feel a lump in my throat. A moment of doubt and embarrassment akin to the feeling of walking around with toilet paper stuck to the back of your pants (been there done that in high school, no less).
Looking back, my best bloggy moments have been when I didn't worry about being liked or if what I said would be popular or interesting or noteworthy or professional. When I didn't feel the glare of would be agents or publishers or professionals. When I stopped thinking about the end result and was simply
me. When I've hung out with good friends and shared a few good laughs.
Blogging is like writing a novel. It's painful. It's personal. It's embarrassing. It's over thinking every step. It's living in your own little world. And it's best done along side others.
There are a multitude of motivations people have for blogging, from popularity to business to geeking out. I've seen the good, the bad, and the flat out disgusting. I've had friends come and go, some moved on to bigger and better things, others have simply disappeared.
After five years, a handful of bloggy endeavors, and a multitude of twitter handles, I can say with certainty I still don't know what I'm doing. But I know, I'm hooked.
