Why I Swore I'd Never Blog

When I was little (as early as fourth grade) I kept a journal sporadically. In sixth grade I began putting details like my age, my grade, the day of the week, etc. because someday I wanted to be able to go back and remember what it was like to be that age. I also wanted any potential female progeny to know that I was, in fact, once that age. That was, however, my only intended audience: future me and future little me's.

Blogging, on the other hand, always struck me as a cry for attention. If I wanted to express a feeling or tell a story I would simply call a friend and tell them. I didn't want to post personal details online where any random stranger could read my musings. I also didn't want to inundate my friends with the quotidian details of my mundane problems or successes. As far as I was concerned, blogging was for folks who felt entitled to have the whole world's ear (or their sympathy) and that just wasn't my style.

So as I sit down to start my own blog, I feel a profound sense of hypocrisy (as well as a need to apologize to my friends who blog--sorry!). When I was re-diagnosed with Hodgkin's lymphoma I decided the best way to disseminate information to my friends and family was through a caringbridge.com site. It is essentially a blogging site (though I refused to fully admit it at the time) where people with serious illnesses can post updates for the many friends and family who are concerned about them. That experience, coupled with my own scouring of the internet for blogs about others who'd fought Hodgkin's, led me to realize that sometimes people read blogs for the experience of knowing there is someone else out there struggling with similar issues. In that realization I made a baby step towards becoming a blogger.

Then I began reading my friend Julie's blog (check it out at http://julieandmartinsblog.blogspot.com/ ) and realized that blogs could be inspiring. Julie is a working mother, a wonderful photographer, a devoted wife, a military woman, and she's just plain hilarious to boot. She shares her imperfections and somehow that makes mine less glaring to me. I love keeping up with her and her family, and hearing about the crazy (and the lovely) adventures they have. So I decided that blogging could not only connect people in suffering, but in joy. Another baby step.

Then a week or so ago I read a blog from a high school friend I haven't talked to in at least 10 years...and I identified with every bit of it (check that post out at: http://intertwiningemotions.blogspot.com/2011/06/why-doesnt-anyone-else-look-like-me-so.html?spref=fb ). I wanted to shout YES! and give her a hug and a high five. Here's a girl who I'd not been in touch with for a decade recounting experience after experience that I'd had. So it turns out blogging is a place for finding yourself in others, and others in yourself. For sharing experiences we've all already had some experience with. It's like a digital version of Ralph Waldo Emerson's "Oversoul."

So I think I'll blog.