Although this is my first post here, it is not my first blog post, nor is it my first blog. I'm actually a little embarrassed to discuss how much "experience" I have with blogging because it's A. Lot. I figured it made sense in my first post here to recount my history of sort-of-blogging and blogging. So buckle your seat belts, folks! Here we go!
This is where my obsession began...
I was just 10 years old and in the fifth grade when I received this journal for Christmas.
So young, so innocent, so embarrassingly awkward! I think my signature on the right (above) is from 5th grade when I first received the diary, but the writing to the left is from Jr High. "JC" stands for Jesus Christ. Duh... What else would it be for? (Sarcasm) "Holichild" was my aim screen name from around that time as well. (I later invented an edgier handle: "pinkmotherpunker" #noimnotkidding #imsoembarassing).
But wait, there's more!
My husband Alex and I got married this past June, and finally moved into our first place in September (that's a story for another post). When I was unloading the box of all my journals (I have a ton. Don't judge me) I thought it would be super fun to "journey down memory lane" with my new husband and give him a "glimpse into the mind of little Maegan." Dear reader, please, I beg you: if you ever feel inspired to make this nostalgic journey in your own life... DON'T. And if you, because of some over-romanticized lapse of judgement, think it might be a great idea to share that reminiscing with someone you love... STOP. Just don't.
I mean sure, like my journal above, the page might begin with the sweet, so-naively-stupid-that-it's-kind-of-adorable reminder inside the diary, where the key is hidden in case you need to find it, but then it turns into pages and pages and pages of oh-my-glob-I'm-so-painfully-awkwardly-embarrassing.
I mean... So many feelings!
Alex was riveted and I was gouging my eyes out.. Not an ideal "date night".
So, thank God (I think?) my writing evolved over time. And when I got into 7th grade and graduated from just feelings to feelings and insecurity and hormones, my journal became this weird psycho-experiment. The girls in my grade started passing their diaries around and giving them to other girls to write them mushy mush mush "you're so great" letters in them so they could "keep them forever." The catch was you weren't supposed to read the "diary" part of the person's diary which you had in your possession, at home, with no one else watching. Yeah. Interestingly enough, I was so honest that I never listened to the rules and totally read everyone's journals. I mean, come on! (Also, in retrospect, can we say, "cry for attention?!")
Once I got to the high school phase of feelings and insecurity and hormones times a bajillion, I just oozed awkward journaling all over the place. I went through a letter writing phase, where I would write letters to people in my journal of all the things that I really was thinking and feeling and wanted to say to people, and then kept them safely in my journal so they would never have to know. I mean, where did I learn I couldn't tell people how I felt? Weirdsies. Then, the paper couldn't contain my emotions so it oozed all over the internets on my LiveJournal. Any LiveJournal-ers out there? Talk about throwback, that was before MySpace! (Had that later too).
Anyway, most of my early online blogging was a super melancholic, insecure, longing to be seen teenager and then young adult. I wrote way too vulnerably for the public eye, and gave away far too much of myself into the abyss of the interwebz.
Then I became an older young adult, in my 21-24 years, and I wrote a little more cautiously, but still vulnerably, about faith, and my prayer life, and my insights of the world. 3 words: MEL.AN.CHOLIC. like woah. I remember I used to think of experiences in terms of blog posts. I would construct new posts in my daydreams and not be able to feel relaxed until I unburdened myself of those posts. And then, it all slowly died away.
At first, I was too busy to post. I wanted to, I thought about it, but I didn't have the time. Often I'd forget my posts before I had an opportunity to publish them. Multiple times I wrote these elaborate, detailed, emotional posts and then lost interest or "got stuck" half-way through and then never rescued them from my drafts. I also wasn't quite sure who my audience was anymore, and even less certain of who I wanted it to be.
Then I got engaged, and 9 months later got married, and I had nothing to say - not because I wasn't buzzing with insights and experiences (I definitely was), but because, for the first time, I wasn't desperate to be seen. I was seen, and known, and loved, in every day of my new life, and I didn't need to seek out that validation anymore. And so I sort of, dried up.
That was a weird transition.
I never stopped craving the artistic release and satisfaction of composing a good blog (you can't get rid of melancholic... It's there forever), I just didn't have any words to say. The only audience I needed to share with was my husband.
That hasn't changed, my husband is my forever audience of one. But when my beautiful best friend began her lovely blog over at Mexican Domestic Goddess it ignited a desire in my heart again to create something beautiful. I realized, my husband gets the deepest parts of me, and he always will, and that is good! But I still have beauty to share with the world, and I still have the desire to write, and I still can celebrate the glory of this life with people in the blogosphere.
So, here I am. Starting anew, again.
This time as a married woman, renewed, and so different from who I used to be, and yet, more myself than when I began all those years ago.
I hope you enjoy this journey with me. Hopefully, I won't be as awkward, but no guarantees.
All my journals.... I told you there were a lot....
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