Writing, or Why I’m Starting this Blog

I want to write more.

I have had a negative association with writing because up until this point, most of my writing has been at the direction of a teacher or professor.  And I hate writing papers.  Hate it.  Sitting in front of the computer and having the churn out five (or ten or twenty or even a one) page paper?  I will do everything in my power to avoid it.  The only way I wrote papers throughout my academic career was by putting it off until the last possible moment when I had no choice but to complete the assignment.  It was an amazingly effective strategy.  Even as I sailed through school, this process left me with a strong distaste for writing.

In high school I used to love to write–not papers, I still hated those with every fiber of my being–but writing for me?  I loved it.  I would spend the hours of study hall or class just writing.  Stream of consciousness, describing what I was thinking and feeling on any scrap of paper I could find.  It helped me process.  I would spend hours looking up different quotations because I loved collecting these phrases that distilled so much into so little in such a beautiful way.  I found it inspiring.  I still have folders full of random note pages filled with quotes, thoughts, poems, discussion… it was my own disconnected journal.  I have never successfully journaled in the traditional sense of recording the activities of my life for posterity.  When I travel I try to “journal” because I know a year, or two, or five years down the line it will all be a haze and I’ll wish for a more detailed account than what I can pull from my memory.

All of this is to say that I’ve written myself off as a writer because I can’t journal and I detest academic papers.  Somewhere along the way, I forgot that I actually used to love to write.  For me.

So I’m starting again.  I’m going to try and write something every day.  Even if it’s only a few sentences and makes no sense to anyone but me.  I think writing could be an important creative outlet for my thoughts and energy as well as a tool to with which I can both navigate and remember my life.

For now, my blog with be anonymous.  I’m not going to share the link with my family and friends, I’m not going to post pictures, I’m not going to share identifying details.  I want to be free to explore my life, the world, and this medium without wondering how so-and-so is going to perceive or interpret it.  I want to get my writing legs back before sending it out to the masses with whom I interact on a daily basis.

So for now, it’s just going to be for me.

And any random person who stumbles here through the maze that is World Wide Web.

Why I Shouldn’t Blog at Night

Because I really just want to go to sleep.

I am not a night person.  Or evening person.  After dinner is my time.  I’ve always been this way–even in high school and college.  I like my evenings to be free of responsibility so I can just enjoy my time reading, lounging, and spending time with NK.  So when I decide that I need to do a post a day for a week to get the habit of blogging?  Well, it means that there will be insubstantial posts like this one because right now all I want to do is brush my teeth and go to bed because tomorrow I’m waking up at the crack of dawn to go pick some vegetables.

Tomorrow I will post in the afternoon.

This is harder than I thought.

Before I started this blog I would think throughout the day, “I could write about that if I had a blog…” or “Wouldn’t it be interesting to see what people thought about          ?”  Now that I have a blog?  Nothing.  I’ve got nothing.  Sigh.  I enjoy reading witty, interesting, informative, and amusing blogs.  I am not sure mine will fall into any of those categories, but I’m going to write anyhow.

Earlier today I read this NY Times article.  It was particularly timely in my life considering I was working two minimum wage paying jobs after receiving my master’s degree.  I fell into the employed category, but not into the “applying my degree” category (not that the government measures or cares about that).  It’s not that I believe that utilizing one’s degree is key to success–it’s not.  But there is a problem if a large portion of recent graduates are unable to find jobs that utilize their education and skills.  It’s demoralizing.

Recently my brother told me that he does not believe that the “path to self-actualization will be through his career.”  I agree–having tunnel-vision focused on moving up the career ladder does not seem rewarding in the long term, especially if it comes at the expense of building relationships with family and friends.  That said, I am filled with a youthful (naive?) optimism that it is possible to find a career that furthers you on the road to happiness.  I believe that true happiness stems from relationships, but I would like to think that a career could add to, rather than detract from that happiness.  I say all this, but I am not sure what a fulfilling and rewarding career looks like for me.  I have to agree with my friend over at Inviting Joy that my true oeuvre will be to raise my children.  Everything else?  It will fall into place.