Blogging it Out

Why do I blog? I sometimes wonder why I don't just keep my words to myself. Why put them out for the world to see?

When I first started this blog, it was to try and keep connections with family and friends open all year instead of just at Christmas and special occasions. I thought I'd write about my thoughts, life and how I felt about it. If anyone was interested, I would be here all year. Not just in their mailbox at Christmas.

Then I got lost in the world of words. I went through a phase of wondering what the theme of my blog should be. I posted a lot of positive thinking blogs - bits and snatches of real life intermixed with what I read and heard. That is just me. I tend to need that optimistic booster shot in my life. I try to fill up with the positive and live it. And if I can carry a few people along with me for the ride, all the better.

There are so many parallels in the lives we lead. I may be writing my thoughts, feelings and reactions to what I am living ... but what I've realized through my writing (and speaking), is that a lot of people are thinking, feeling and reacting to similar situations in their own lives. There is something reassuring to being validated in what you feel and how you react to it.

Knowing that I may have an 'audience' that I am unaware of, helps to remind me to be gentle with my words and conscious of the way they could be interpreted. If I was journaling in the privacy of my own little world, there would be too many details. I rather enjoy keeping things just a little bit anonymous and vague. People who know me well, know who or what I'm talking about. And if they don't, does it really matter? There is usually a point to my story and a lesson to be learned. Or it is just one of those things in life that you must endure.

I love being able to look back in time and see what I what I was living and feeling 'way back when'. I love tracking history through words. My history is pretty mundane, but one never knows when that could change. And if it did, it's nice to have the ability to look back and remember the 'before picture'.

I feel like I'm a work in progress and this is a way of tracking the before, during and after of this life that I am leading. I set many lofty goals for myself. Some of them I achieve, lots get forgotten, others are tabled for later and then there are the ones where I fail miserably. Why write about it? I think everyone needs to set the bar high and try to achieve 'great things' (great things are as small or large as you need them to be). I think everyone needs to know that others try and fail. I think it's important to keep trying (or adjust your goals as necessary). I need to be inspired, so I keep writing on the chance that I may inspire just one person to push themselves past a moment in time.

I have often been told that I should write a book. I know that the unspectacular life that I am living is not that of a best seller. But it touches me to know that my words are appreciated by the people who touch my life. By blogging, I am writing that 'book' for the people who may be interested. Who knows ... maybe my children will take these words and bind them in a book some day. Or maybe they will just be available for them to read when I am no longer around to write them. How I wish that I could stumble across the inner workings of the minds of the people in my life who are no longer around to tell me their story.

I like to write about the ordinary and the reality of day to day living. Everyone wakes up with the same 24 hours ahead of them. Some of those days are special but most are just another day. There are little gems within each day we are given. The days that feel laden with burdens and worries don't last. It seems that they do and they can. But in the end, we usually come out the other side of a tough situation a little bit wiser and with a new appreciation of how extraordinary it really is ... just to live 'another day in the life'.

That's all I know. Life as I live it .... that's 'Life as I Know It'.