So I’m tentatively dipping my toes back in the blogging habit.
Why?
This is a great question, one I’ve been asking myself hundreds of times in the last few weeks and months. I love to write. Writing out my wonderings and ponderings help me to sort them out for myself in a way no conversation ever can. Documenting my experiences and travels allows friends and family to live vicariously through me, to see and experience places they may never have the opportunity to visit themselves. It’s an honor for me to do that, and I enjoy when others do the same… to share a glimpse into the abundant favor and incredible joys I am so privileged to feel and see and document. I don’t take that lightly. Sharing these things also helps me to remember them; to go back and read some of my blogs from my time on Mercy Ships for example, brings me back to those feelings and places in such a rich way I find myself on my knees in gratitude every time I wonder at this incredible life I get to lead. And, finally, somewhat selfishly, I do wonder if there is a book in me to write; when the time is right and the words are ready, and this is a good way for me to hone my craft, this art I love.
So why not?
Because people.
People can be cruel. And judgmental. And hurtful. And hateful. I’m lucky in that I don’t get a whole lot of nastygrams, but then again, I tend to write about things that aren’t controversial. That’s intentional. But I don’t really think it’s right. Maybe. For me. I don’t know.
I suppose one can say who cares what others think as long as it’s from your heart? To which I say yes, I get that, and I believe it, until… people change. Opinions change. Things I was once passionate about, sure about, wrote strongly worded blog posts about… I no longer feel the same way. Once you put words out there, as we can see with decades-old tweets landing celebrities in hot water, they will never disappear.
Personally, I’m relieved and grateful social media wasn’t a thing until I was in my late 20’s, as I can only imagine what kind of cringe-worthy idiocy I might have proclaimed as truth in my early years. Even now, when I’m reminded of things I posted ten years ago in my Facebook memories, some of them make me feel just a little bit sick to my stomach. Or irritated. Or just roll my eyes at my own naiveté, ignorance, and lack of perspective.
But that’s all a part of growing up; of expanding our perspectives and ideas and understandings of how things work in the universe… or maybe more accurately, expanding our understanding of all the things we don’t really know anything about, and we also become more comfortable admitting that. There’s just so much I don’t know and don’t understand, and who am I to think I have any reason whatsoever to share my thoughts and experiences?
I don’t know, I go back and forth. I guess it comes down to the fact that even if only a handful family members read this for the purpose of keeping up on my life, and I enjoy the process of doing it, then it’s worth doing. Working out words, massaging them and forming them to reflect and contain the exact feelings I want them to embody makes me feel alive. Even writing this I feel the blood humming in my forearms and in my fingertips, my brain stretching and searching to find just the right cadence and commas and creative allusions that, once found, I look at with pride, this thing I’ve created. I can only imagine that is why painters paint and sculptors sculpt and songwriters write song after song, regardless of who things it’s ‘good’. Because there is a painting or sculpture or song in them to create and not obeying that calling is depriving the rest of us of something beautiful.
So let us begin.
Let us begin 