Why I Blog

I mean, sometimes it’s because something is rattling around in my brain and it doesn’t go away until I write it out.  Or I get a bee in my bonnet about something and just have to say my piece.

But after my last post, I was reflecting on this for more than a fleeting moment and I realized – I write because it feels like a way to let people see me.

Vulnerability has been my Achilles heel for as long as I’ve been aware of it – which has only really been the past few years or so.  Like everyone else who builds up resistance and protection against all the things that bombard us in our cultural norms, I have found innumerable ways to protect that sweet young innocent kiddo that still lives in my heart somewhere.  When you’re a kid, you throw up some cardboard for protection, it gets stomped, and then you go find some plywood.  Eventually that gets axed, so you find some corrugated metal, until that rusts and crumbles, and then you find the next material, and the next, and the next, until you have built up an impenetrable fortress that simply cannot be breached.

It surprises people to find out that I feel like I hide parts of myself.  I am outgoing, outspoken, often honest to the point of brazen-ness, and I seem to say or tell people things that others don’t – all signals to others that I am totally and completely open.

But I don’t always feel that way.  In fact, sometimes I feel a deep loneliness when I think of the pieces of myself that stay locked away, never to see daylight.

When I’m with others, I cater to the room (real or virtual).  So even though I speak my mind and contribute my thoughts, I notice when people are uncomfortable or upset or something is off kilter, and my reaction is to adjust the environment to get us back on an even keel again – even if this means tucking myself away.  And when I do this enough, I stop noticing what my original thoughts and feelings are and I simply continue to work to hold the social balance.

But when I write, I have time to think.  I have time to put my thoughts down as soon as they come out, and then go back and really think – do I mean that?  Or do I mean something else?  And I have time to really make my words reflect exactly what my internal world thinks, and it feels like, just for those moments when I post a blog, that I am letting out that part of me that never gets to see the light.

It is by far my biggest joy in writing when I hear someone say that they really hear my voice in my writing, or that it’s “so me”.  It is the acknowledgement that says – I see you.  Whether or not I agree or am interested or even care about this topic – I see you.

So to each of you who has told me you see me, thank you.  I am trying mightily, through my writing especially, to show up more and more.

How do YOU allow others to see you?  Until I get a comments section up and running, I hope you will consider posting a response on the channel in which you found this (Instagram, Facebook, LinkedIn) or if you just want to send me an email with your thoughts, I would be delighted to see you too.

The younger version of me, already stewing in those inner thoughts. Or maybe just wondering if I’ll get away with having snuck chocolate, even though it’s ringed around my mouth…