Peek not through keyholes…

…for though the doors are not locked (and are, in fact, wide open), these rooms are mine.

Wait, huh?

There’s a post I’ve been meaning to write for some time, but I thought it would be lovely to use it for my first blogiversary (which is in just a few days, if you can believe it). The post being, of course, why do I blog?

I officially started blogging almost one year ago, but I began writing for a blog long before that. I’ve always written in one format or another: diaries, that poetry phase in high school, essays, articles, journal entries. Then I stumbled upon Mir’s Woulda, Coulda, Shoulda and somehow reading through the archives of her blog, about how she managed to climb through the rubble of her divorce gave me the courage to make it through my own. I think that’s the first time I really thought about joining the crazy world of blogging.

I was scared to try. So many other bloggers were already out there and they were all seemingly light-years ahead of me in the talent department. Why bother trying? And if I could somehow manage to find my voice again and make it be heard (no matter how small the venue), how did I know that I could keep it up? How would I ever find something interesting enough to write about day in and day out? And then if I could do that, what if no one read it? Sure, sure – I heard all the Field of Dreams arguments, both from friends and in my heart. Build it and they will come. But supposing they did and I just dropped the blog like one of my other passing phases – what then? What would that do to my already shaky self-image? I couldn’t hold a marriage together, what if I couldn’t even hold a silly blog together?

Lots of questions. Too many questions, even for me. So I turned to my tried and true method of resolving them: I wrote. I wrote fake blog entries to myself for three months. If I could keep it up for three months, I told myself, and I still wanted to do it, I could start a blog. (You’d think I was buying a puppy, for crying out loud.) I did it. I wrote and I wrote and I wrote. It was easy when I didn’t have an audience; when I didn’t have a deadline. I wrote in the mornings before work and in the slow times in between, and sometimes (rarely) at night when I needed a minute to myself.

I wrote for me.

And by god, it helped.

I rediscovered how therapeutic writing was. I mean, I had always known it on the top of my mind, but I had forgotten it down deep where all the overthinking and hurt was globbing up everything else. Starting a blog and adding an audience played in a little with my overwhelming (and somewhat unhealthy) need for validation, but really, it was to give myself a place to continue my free therapy and work through so many issues while simultaneously keeping a few close friends and family members up to date with what was going on with me and my girls. I could talk about my life, our life, and underneath the surface I could skate up to whatever was bothering me and air that into the sunshine so I could understand it. Crazy as it sounds, I write semi-publicly so that I can understand myself. It’s for me and no one else.

These are my rooms, my living space. I reside here. I’ve met many friends through blogging and I cherish them and the opportunity. But blogging always has been and will continue to be about working out my own issues. It’s an incredible personal struggle that I’ve decided to put on semi-public display. I’m incredibly proud of myself for sticking with it, for being brave enough to throw it out there, and for learning as much from it as I have. It’s been one more continuous step on this journey to figuring out who the hell I am. Anyone who has stumbled upon them has stumbled across the keyhole into my own therapist’s office, my own Katieverse (or, as Se’Lah calls it, a Necessary Room). Go ahead and peek through the keyhole – hell, come right on in. Hopefully what you see here is reminiscent of what you’re looking for in your own little rooms. But if not, remember – you came looking for me. I don’t mean to be rude, I don’t mean to push anyone away. I’m just trying to tie together what has happened in my life to what actually is, and figure out how the hell to steer all that towards what I want to be.

That is why I blog. I couldn’t get there from where I was, but I’m trying now.

Tags: all about me, blogging