I didn’t start this blog because I’m a writer or because I took that one creative writing one-off in college and suddenly needed an outlet for those ideas to be released. I started this blog as an experiment with social media. Prior to it, I followed 15 people on Twitter, didn’t have an Instagram, and intentionally hid from people I knew on Facebook (I still kind of do that, though). I didn’t even know what Tumblr was. I hated the idea of people I don’t know knowing what I’m doing or saying or thinking. I didn’t understand hashtags or why people would take a selfie, but now I do. The one thing I did understand back then was that social media is important whether you love it or hate it or are completely indifferent to it. It’s how we communicate today. So, I needed to be a part of it. This blog forced me to be a part of it. It forced me to share me with others and the funny thing is, I’m an extrovert, yet, I still had qualms about people being in my business and knowing personal things about me. A girl who loves to travel and will talk to total strangers pretty much making friends anywhere and everywhere had issues with documenting her life for the world to see. It’s been a good run and I’ve grown tremendously because of it.
So I’ve been thinking long and hard about my blog lately. It is my blog, so I can pretty much say or write whatever I want. I know this, but since the beginning I’ve been limiting myself to throw-back little ditties or exciting adventures I’m having right now. Maybe I’ve thrown in a music challenge or themed related section for a short time, but they’ve been limited topics all the same. I keep telling myself that the people who read what I write want funny and routine. Maybe. But it shouldn’t be about them. As any Millennial would say – “It should be about me.”
Over the last several months, I’ve realized this has caused me to not post as frequently. I’ve been pressuring myself to share a funny story of way-back-when or something super cool I’ve experienced recently that my readers would enjoy. But what happens when I can’t really remember anything because I’m getting old and my mind is a great big fog and my recent life experiences have been likened to that of a crabby cat lady who’s shut-in her shabby chic laden home? I created a box and forced myself into it. It helped me get this blog started because I had a formula, a plan. I put my flag in the ground and declared “this is what it’ll be”. Now, I want it to be more. Or rather I want to be more.
I want to share my thoughts, theories and points of view – something I rarely do. I’m not planning on going all political or anything, but what if I want to review a TV show? What if I want to interview someone? What if I want to talk about being a Hoosier? What if Iwant to share top ten lists of things I like? Or, what if I want to talk about sports? I LOVE sports! I’ve never used my blog as a forum to just spew whatever it is I’m thinking, but I’ve noticed that that’s kind of what people do. So maybe it’s my time to do so and by exploring more topics or expanding more deeply, I can continue to grow. It’s selfish not thinking about my readers and only thinking about me, I know, but it began as an internal project and it will continue to be so. Don’t get me wrong, I love you for taking the time to read what I write, just know that it isn’t because of you that I write it, if that makes sense.
I say all of this to let you know that some of my posts may look a little different moving forward. This doesn’t mean I won’t be blogging about things I’m doing or throw-backs that happened a while ago, but maybe my posts will be a little shorter or just about different things. Maybe they’ll be questions I have that I want to throw out to the masses. Regardless of the form they take, I am hoping to get back to a somewhat regular posting schedule. I’m hoping this expanded blogging experiment will at the very least help me with my brain block. I want to be unbounded in my process and approach because I’m not a writer with a goal or motive in mind. I’m just a girl, sitting behind a computer dipping her toe in the worldwide water of the interweb hoping to survive. And hoping that the water isn’t too cold. I hate cold water.
See you on the flipside.
