Why?

This is as a sort of continuation of yesterday's post but I started, after the conversation with my mother, to ask myself why it is that I write a blog at all.

When I started, I felt like I was coming late to the blogging game.

I'd been reading blogs for a couple of years and really enjoyed it.

I enjoyed following along in people's lives. And once I got used to the idea, I enjoyed commenting on their posts and feeling like my comment was now a part of their story or their journey. And from there I started to make some friendships and really care about some people I'd come to know through this medium.

In the summer of 2006 I was having trouble sleeping and I found myself telling myself little stories in my head.

The more I heard them, the more they started sounding like blog posts and sometimes I'd tell myself a little quip and laugh out loud to myself in the dark and I thought, hmmm, maybe someone else would find that amusing too. Maybe I should start a blog.

So at the time it was the idea of sharing the thoughts that were making me laugh with "the world"; this nebulous thing I imagined.

I remember the feeling I got when I got my first comment. It was like the flush of feeling faint with a rush to the head and a panicked feeling of losing my privacy and feeling famous all at once.

From there, those funny little stories I heard in my head, I started thinking of other stories I could tell.

Things from my past that had happened and had a big impact on me in some way. Or random observations about my life or day or whatever.

I'd just sit there and tell a story and hit publish and move on.

I'm heading towards five years of writing this blog and I think the reasons I write now are sometimes different.

Sure, sometimes I just have a random observation about my life or a funny story to tell but I think if you asked me now why I write a blog it would be for more than just that.

In part, it's to keep me writing. I've always liked to write.

In part, it's to vent about my life and the things that go through my head with regards to my struggles and frustrations about being single. So it's sort of like therapy in that way. I get to talk about what used to just go around and around in my head and sometimes the talking about it helps me make sense of it or helps it feel better. Sometimes just airing something out makes it disappear.

But what's been an absolute blessing to me and something I never expected was the feeling of connection and of sometimes even helping that writing here gives me.

I write something here that's painful for me and I get people sending me hugs and telling me it'll be ok. And sometimes I sit and re-read a post and read the comments and I cry and cry and cry because it's life affirming that strangers who've never met me can be so kind and can pick me up.

And then I get the comments from people telling me that they understand because they feel the same way or that they're going through the same thing and that hearing what I wrote has helped them somehow and I feel like maybe writing a blog isn't self indulgent at all.

Because I never wanted it to be about me. I wanted it to be about people connecting to me; to something I said. And that that connection would somehow brighten their day or lift their spirits.

Whether that be through a laugh (because damn I used to have a lot of funny things to say) or through a feeling of "that's *exactly* what I feel" and knowing we're not alone.

It's the strangest and most amazing thing. When I sit down to write a post that's really coming from a place of hurt or upset, I'm never writing it with anyone else in mind. I'm not writing it thinking "gosh, I wonder if someone else will feel the same way." I'm just writing it to get it out and to say "fuck this hurts." It amazes me any time someone says "me too" and it somehow makes me feel better and less alone and that's an honour.

So why do I write a blog?

To tell my story.

To maybe, just maybe help someone feel a little bit better.

To write.

Because it helps me sort out my life and what I'm feeling and thinking.

Because you read it. And keep on reading it. Some of you for a long long time. (Thank you)

Because it feels right.