Ode to the blog

I’ve discovered something about myself.

I love to blog.

Really. I love it. You know why? It’s one of the only things I do entirely for me. I know that’s selfish and narcissistic sounding (and at the same time makes me sound like some selfless saint, which I am not), but it’s true.

I mean, do I like comments? Of course. Who doesn't, really? (And, sidenote, if you want to reveal yourself as a reader, please, feel free to do so today. It'd be nice to know if the thousand hits I’ve gotten are mostly me, re-reading my own posts, or if there are people out there who really read what I have to say.)

But I’m not going to cry if all of a sudden the readers stop reading. I do this for me.

I think you may know by now, but if not: I like to write. Scratch that. Love to write.

And I don’t get to do enough of it. Except here. This blog made me fall in love with writing all over again.

Here I can write what I want, when I want, how I want.

Sometimes it’s lazy writing. Sometimes I edit and re-edit until the words come out just right.

Either way, I love it.

I stay really busy planning things, organizing things, designing things, and doing things for others. Plus there’s this thing called a job. And even though most of these are enjoyable to me, they’re not really for me. Do you know what I mean?

In fact, some days, I’d really like to clear my entire calendar and not do a thing. Ignore all obligations. Accomplish nothing (except maybe I would watch The Office and eat cinnamon rolls and read a good book). But since my calendar stays full and my obligations remain intact and books go unread, I blog as my getaway.

It’s kind of liberating.

Because instead of fulfilling obligations, planning Bible classes, filling my calendar, writing emails, checking Facebook: I choose to write. Whatever I want. However I want. Some might call this irresponsible. I call it saving my sanity.

When I was younger, I thought writing would be what I did all day long. Now I see why. I love to write. (I even liked writing research papers in college. Seriously.) I majored in journalism because I figured: if I want to write all day long and get paid, I’ll have to be a journalist. (Which, looking back, was good logic, but journalism died this year. Did you notice?)

So, post-college, I don’t get to write all day. But I do get to blog.

And that is something to write about.