don't let it go to your head

Self-flaunting, I’ve always tried to steer clear of it. When a friend asked me if I wanted to join a local community of bloggers, I panicked like a little kid at Show ‘n’ Tell. After a few days of fretting over what it might mean to have a blog (Who will read it? What will I say? Is blogging self-absorbed?), I agreed. Nervously, I pecked out a few entries, but never consistently enough to garner any kind of following – who wants to follow a blog that hasn’t been updated in months? Eventually, my blog—sad and inactive—was killed to make room for bloggers actually interested in blogging.

But suddenly today, four years later, I’m interested in having a blog. It doesn’t have to be for flaunting purposes, I tell myself, but rather to force me to write more often, with intent and for an audience, even if it’s an audience of only one and that one person is me. ‘Cause regardless of who reads it (or who doesn’t), I’m still threatened by the chance someone will and that’s more motivating for thoughtful writing than a locked journal, no?

So here I am. And nice to meet you. Suppose I’ll start with a brief rundown of myself. I live and write in the same small city I grew up in. Sometimes, I live with my parents’, other times I live at the house I moved into with the boyfriend about two years ago. I’ve been thinking about furniture and paint and yards so often, I’m sure I’ll be moving back in soon. I have two older sisters, one in town and another that fled long ago. I’ve been keeping journals since I can remember. I was a goofy kid and a tomboy at times. I felt guilty and insecure often, landing me in the hands of jerk-off boyfriends for far too many years. Writing was the only time I felt confident, or at least functional, so I kept it up, freelancing here and there. I freelanced and worked shit jobs for five years until I found a full time—and unglamorous—writing gig, which like any job, has its pros and cons. I don’t take jobs (or careers, if you prefer) seriously anymore. I’d rather focus on more important stuff, like family, friends, health, good times, etc. Finally finding a “real” job coincided with finding a “real” relationship, though I’ve had to retrain myself to understand how to behave in one. I’m pretty basic. I like sleeping (diagonally usually), eating (peanut butter mostly) and being around people (genuine entirely). I’m taking yoga seriously again and reading a book about gardening so I can understand how plants grow and stuff. I don’t really know who I am but, for the first time in my life, I half-smile when I walk down the street. And I think that’s a good start.

Spinning: The Shaky Hands’ self-titled debut (Holocene Music label)

Reading: One Hundred Years of Solitude by Gabriel Garcia Marquez