Just Blog!

I recently read an article in Cloth Paper Scissors on blogging. It was written by an artist, Kelly Rae Roberts, whose blog I frequent. And her main point was: just blog. It doesn't matter what you blog about. It's okay if you don't know what to blog about. Just do the thing. Eventually you will create a rhythm and perhaps figure some things out about yourself.



So, okay. If anyone needs to understand myself better, it's me. I think I go through at least two identity crises a year, if not more. But I suppose that, if I learned anything in 2007, it is this: no one is just one person. There is no set number of characteristics that define a person. It really depends on a lot of things: environment, mood, season, perhaps a holiday. . .take for instance: I consider myself to be a Christian hippie. I feel most like a hippie in spring (though it's not completely confined to that particular time of year, because I have felt it throughout the year). Sometimes in winter, if I hear one of my favorite country songs, I can picture myself living in a nice, sunny farmhouse with a wrap-around porch in the middle of a big piece of land, out in the middle of no-where.



What totally stinks is, some people have been, previously, identified with who they were when they were in school. I am one of those people. I was not popular. I was not academically graceful (I made mostly B's, with an occasional A or C). I was a little artsy *I have been this all my life, and I regret not taking more than one art class in high school*. I don't believe I was either a freak or a geek. I was just. . .there. And I let other people bother me. And oddly enough, sometimes when I look at my old yearbooks, I start feeling that way again.



But WHY should I? That was so long ago by now. And even now, what have I got to prove? The person I need to prove anything to is myself. I am a generally good person who lets too much stuff bother me*which may be a very good reason for keeping a blog*.

This leads me to another point. I used to keep a personal journal. I actually kept one, all the way throughout the book, and I don't remember exactly when I wrote the last entry in that particular journal, but I do know that since then I haven't been able to keep one particular journal. I have several journals lying around, plain journals that I have written in and, by now, ripped the pages out to start fresh.. I even have one that I was using to specifically keep track of my thoughts on the matter of a particular friendship. But I was thinking just today that this particular journal should be the one I keep especially, and that no-one who is unworthy even be named in it. I'm not saying that this particular friend is unworthy; but this particular friendship is kind of complicated and no longer needs me to dwell upon it so directly. That is as much as I will say about that.

I want to grow, both artistically and emotionally. I want to get a handle on who I truly am. I want to find out what mixture of qualities I am comfortable "wearing". I hope that makes sense to everyone else but if it doesn't, I can't help that. It's the best way I know how to describe it. That's another thing. I am always worried about hurting other people's feelings. I never want to hurt anybody but I need to quit (in my mind anyway) pushing myself down. Putting everything out there for everybody else. I can't accomplish self-fulfillment if I try to make everyone else understand. I've already made them understand all I can. Maybe that's why I don't understand a lot of things about myself at all. . .