The Written Voice

I've been blogging for a long while now. Sometimes it surprises me how well I've kept this up. Even when things got scary, I was still able to come back to the blog. It might take a day or so, but it would always happen. I'm not just happy about that, I'm proud of it. It's interesting to me that even in the midst of feeling like disjointed and lacking in almost all creativity, I'm still able to show up here and write about what's happening in my life. Therapy is good for me, but blogging is always better.

If you ever decide to do a blog, always keep in mind that it doesn't have to be perfection. If it is a personal blog like mine, it doesn't always have to be entertaining or informative. Sometimes it's just there to document your thoughts. Sometimes it's just a record of what is going on in your life at that moment. Sometimes, especially if you are ill or depressed or tired, that will be all you can manage to do.

I think a lot of people get confused about what blogging is supposed to do. This isn't journalism. This isn't a professional thing where I abide by ethics or guidelines. This is just the stuff that shows up in my brain and that is all it will probably ever be. I know sometimes I am only speaking into The Void, and that's fine. It's not important that I am heard. It's only important that I spoke.

Too often, we feel like we have to have outside validation in order to matter. We don't. It's nice. It's very nice, in fact, but it doesn't have to happen. At the end of the day, the person we owe the most to is ourselves. Loving ourselves, taking care of ourselves, and being aware of what is going on in our own lives is a much less precarious path to validation.

I'm 40. I blog about my life. I repeat myself a lot. I write about when I'm angry or scared. I write about the amazing moments that happen to me. I hope you read them and it means a lot to me that you do. Most of all, it means a lot to me that my written voice is able to express things, as I fear for my life or celebrate my victories or mourn for my losses.

If you don't feel like you are being heard enough, I strongly suggest you begin to blog. Don't worry if anyone reads it. Don't worry about it being perfect. Don't worry about it being witty or entertaining or the deepest thing ever. Some days it will be. Other days, it certainly won't.

What it will be, always, every time you post, is a documentation of you. And you, all of you, are certainly deserving of that.