A Reluctant Blogging Venture

This being  my very first blog post on my very first blog, I thought it would be wise to start out this new relationship with complete honesty.  So here is my confession: I used to think blogging was ridiculous. Absolutely. Ridiculous.

Now that that is out in the open, let me give some disclaimers. Firstly, it has been a few years since I moved beyond that opinion (or at least warmed to the idea somewhat). Secondly, to all my friends and family whose blogs I’ve been reading in the past year or so: I’ve really enjoyed them and it is partly due to your creative efforts that I’ve decided to venture into this ridiculous, er formerly ridiculous world of blogging.

Ok, so why such an aversion to blogging in the past? Well, part of it is that new things just take a while to grow on me sometimes. I’d like to think i’ts more that I enjoy each season to its fullest before I’m ready to move on to the next. Take the literal seasons for example. I absolutely love the Fall but even in late September, I’m still hoping to go swimming one last time. I want to squeeze as much fun out of every drop of sunshine before I’ m ready to say good-bye. And I get super annoyed when I go into a clothing store in January to see Spring clothing on the racks and not a snow glove to be found anywhere. I know that is the way retail works, always moving ahead, enabling the consumer to be prepared for what is coming. But I don’t want to buy warm weather clothing  when it is snowing outside. I’m not in the mood. And what about if you lose a glove on the ski slopes? I guess you have to wait until next September to buy new ones.

Now, I know that blogging isn’t new anymore. According to LISNews, Blogger and WordPress have been around for 12 and 8 years, respectively. And it’s probably been 5 or 6 years that people I personally know have been blogging. So now we come to the crux of the issue. It just seemed silly. And maybe arrogant.  I mean, real writers write articles that are published by people with authority to say, “Yes, this should be published for the world to read. We give our approval and endorsement.” Oh, and they’re paid for their writing. Non-real writers, on the other hand, write down their thoughts and daily happenings for themselves to read. It’s called a journal. Or if you’re a girl under the age of 17  it’s a diary. And nobody wants to read someone else’s diary. Unless they are looking for juicy information for the purpose of humiliating or blackmailing the writer; and this demographic is usually limited to younger siblings. So to sum up, my general attitude was, “How important do you think you are to assume the whole world cares what you had for breakfast?” (This could also be applied to Facebook, Twitter, etc. , but I got over that hang up a while ago.)

However, slowly, gradually, I became enlightened (or perhaps it got far enough into winter that I knew I would have no hope of finding those perfect snow boots; they’d all been sold at the end of season clearance sale in December to make room for spring sandals.)   Or perhaps it’s really that as I read my friends blogs I enjoy keeping up with those who live far away, I enjoy hearing the thoughts and perspectives of those I see regularly but don’t always get to have in-depth conversations with, and I appreciate the creative ideas, humorous stories, and heartfelt wisdom from people I don’t know and who didn’t even get paid for their labors. As it turns out, not-real writers can be pretty good writers.

And so I decided to dip my toes in and give it a go myself. I don’t know if this will become a committed long-term relationship or just a fling. (I definitely don’t have hours upon hours of free time, that’s for sure.) I guess we’ll see where my meanderings lead me. But for now, I’ll take it slow, and even though it’s a chilly 40 degrees outside, maybe I should go swimsuit shopping.