Word for Word

A fellow blogger today posted that her blog is 5 years old.  Intrigued, I just had to go look.

In January of 2006, I began writing an monthly e-newsletter for my Reiki Healing Circle.  Trying to keep a group of disparate individuals plugged into a common center, encouraging them to utilize what they had been trained for, discussing inventive new things, and providing support to that group.

I learned alot during that time.  I figured out how to mash up a newsletter that was visually interesting and had some thought provoking stuff in it.  I knew most of them ended up in virtual circular files all over the city, but still I kept at it.  The practice of writing for that helped me understand that I had stuff to say.  And what I had to say was not limited to the topic of spirituality or healing.  I needed a bigger soapbox from which to crow.  So, the last e-newsletter was assembled and mailed in December 2008.

My blog initially started on Myspace (remember that?) and the first tentative entry was posted April 9, 2008.  I was pretty sure no one would read it much less give a rabid squirrel fart for anything I had to say.  But I kept at it.  Mostly I did it for me.  These early posts are almost like an on-line diary of sorts.  And every time I dated someone new, I would comb through the archives and purge pieces about previous BF's.  That writing is all lost now.  Not that I care much, most of these pieces are drivel.

When my friends switched over to Facebook so did I.  But, the blog function there was non-existent.  Still is.  Although they have made cross posting from Blogger to FB seamless.  So I started looking around for a place to stash my words.  At least some of them.  My niece was posting on Blogger about her stay at Oxford and so I came here.  I brought over many of the blog pieces from MS.  Admittedly, there was another purge here too.

I see now that how I treated the writing was indicative of how I felt about myself.  Pieces that needed to be hidden.  A world that need to be protected from ugliness.  How I would write a piece because it made me feel better to vomit it out.  Then like a bulimic I would need to hide it.  With each keystroke and click of the What-the-Fuck button aka Publish I grew stronger and felt less need to hide.  It is not my responsibility to care for the world.  Only me.  And if the world doesn't get me or my writing then that's on them.

So officially my life as a blogger is approaching 3 which means I am still in my terrible twos.  I think I will go have a tantrum.  Oh wait I did that last week.   Shortly after I started pushing my words out into the ether, I enrolled at Women Writing for a Change.  Pretty much a done dealio now.  Those two practices synergistically amping up the writing, making me care less what anyone thinks about it (I will always care what you think, I just can't let that affect me) - yes that includes BF's.  No more deleting chunks to assuage someone else's sensibilities.  This is me raw and uncensored.  Word for word.