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Thursday, February 26, 2009

Ordinary Courage Again

Brene Brown did it again…I love her blog.

She seems to be my other voice…my inside voice.

It is both frightening and reassuring that in these wild spaces of my mind and heart, I’m not actually alone in the wilderness.

While my experiences and feelings are entirely unique to me and it is in my singular reaction to feelings and events that I am truly defined as “artistic,” it is reassuring to know that I am not the only one who suffers from scars, tender spots and moments of extreme uncertainty. It is reassuring to know that I am not the only one who was damaged by some long ago agreement I made with a mean and spiteful childish remark made about me. I am not the only one who’s confidence was eroded by somebody who probably had zero confidence themselves and who chose to feel taller by standing on my bruised and tattered self-image.

In particular, the following quote rings true for me:

I blog because my head would blow off if I didn't. I need a place to find my voice and share ideas.


You see, I’ve been thinking about splitting out my blog…doing something for family and Jayden stuff, something for my art, something for my spiritual rants aka inspirational attempts and something for all those quirky references I like to make to other people’s blogs. I generally talk myself out of it because I often find myself with little time to update the ONE blog and will go for long periods of time where I search high and low for ideas to stimulate my two readers.

I have had in recent past, an ambition to marketize my blog. I’d read that the right way to go about getting started was to refine what I post. I struggle with this. I felt as though I’d have to edit myself in a way that is not appealing to me. I felt as though I’d be creating more work and less enjoyment for myself.

So..while I have a blog, I’m not a “blogger” in the sense that I have zero ambition to make the big bucks at it. I don’t even have an ambition to make a dollar at it.

Because I’m not interested in being one of the snarky in-crowd. I blog because my head would blow off if I didn’t.

Thanks for reading my ramblings. I appreciate you. I appreciate why we are alike and why we are different and hope that you will feel brave enough to give me your opinions and thoughts and feelings. I may not agree. But I will listen and we can have dialog. What a concept. Dialog.

Happy day and peace, ya’ll!

3 comments:

Anonymous said...

Oh how strongly do I agree with that sentiment...I also blog because my head would blow up if I didn't. I know that my blog is often rather dull to anyone but me, but sometimes I simply need a place to let my brain loose.

And I've been having similar thoughts about splitting off sections of my blog. I am intending to start a separate homeschooling section as we begin that journey next year, but that will be for me and not for marketability.

I've considered going further with the idea of streamlining or splitting (as you have), but I had a realization recently that the blogs I love most are ones that aren't at all streamlined...they're the ones that cover bits of this and pieces of that. I love your spiritual rants, I love reading about your sweet boy and I love seeing your creativity on paper. And I truly love seeing the way they all come together to create a picture of the life of a woman as she strives to follow God in all she does.

Unknown said...

So interesting... and true. I don't care who reads my blog... or who doesn't. All I care about is sharing my thoughts and my voice. A true diary, so I can keep track of lots of things that are important to me. And also those which are not so important. Makes no sense, but... I just do it for me! LOL

p.s. Count me as one of your readers!

**** April **** said...

Wow - I was JUST THINKING about this today... I should start a scrapbooking blog to put JUST my scrappiness on... start a homeschooling blog to put things/records about what we're doing with that, a family blog for the boys and our life and then a "me" blog for my outlet but then.. I was like... ?? why? Who cares?! I think because one time I want to get my blog printed into a book so that it's like a recorded journal with all the photos and stories of mine for my children's children to read... ya know?