December 31st. The New Beginning

It has been several months since I last wrote a post for the blog that really started my writing. I worked on this site for two strong years before taking almost a full year off. And this is my post to say that I’m back. For a long time, I was trying to post both a blog and a newspaper column with the IDS, my school newspaper. That was exhausting. I ran out of gas for writing. I wasn’t able to do all of what I wanted, and this was the first thing I cut. But I came to realize, the more time I spent away from my own personal writing, the more I missed it. This site is not for the purpose of writing for a specific audience. I lost sight of that for a while. I was writing for the way that people would interact with my words or my thoughts. I was engaging in a form of self-censorship. I wasn’t staying true to what I really wanted to say. Now, though, I need this blog. I need a place where I am free of editors, of word-counts, of suggested topics. I need a place where I can not only post my thoughts, but strengthen them as well. Because as my fingers type out the words running through my head, my mind tackles the issues that I have been fighting to get my head around in the first place. The truth of the matter is that I love to write. My life goal is to write a book. I have begun that process, and along the way I realized that I was missing a way to interact with myself. I had tried several different ways of expressing myself, anywhere from keeping a daily journal of my thoughts to having people with whom I confided in. I quickly realized, though, that the best place to do my writing was actually right here, on this blog, where I started. So for the next year, I am going to return to the writing that started me off. I am going to post once a week, every Sunday, and continue to develop my writing skill, as well as the way that I interact with my own thoughts and emotions. Along the way, I’m not going to write for anyone but me. Anyone who wants to read, I encourage you to do so, and I hope that you will approach me with any comments or critiques that you may have. I hope that the community around me might be able to grow from my experience. But first and foremost I’m going to post what matters to me, and I’m going to write to become a better person. I’ve always stayed away from making New Year’s resolutions, because I believe that it is my job to be getting better every day, not just on the first day of every year. But this, my blog, the site of my deepest thinking, is where I am going to start again, this year, to try to grow by thinking, writing, and assessing exactly who I am, and who I want to be. Let’s see where I go.