Friday, April 17, 2015

April 17: Writing Prompt #107-Million-Dollar Question

Why do you blog?
This is a question that I’ve written about multiple times over the 5 years I have been blogging, so chances are, you already know a bit about why I blog, but just in case there’s still some mystery about it, I’ll sum it up for you here. 
1. For my family and friends….as a means to keep in touch, not only in the sense of sharing news about family and my life, etc…but in the sense of staying close. So often, we grow up and grow away from our family, and we become a group of people who are related but really don’t know each other. If there’s anything my mother, father, brothers, cousins, in-laws or friends didn’t know about me already, and they read this blog, they certainly do now. There’s not much kept secret here. J
2. It’s therapy for me.  Writing has, since about 6th grade, been my outlet for anything and everything I needed an outlet for.  If I was upset, I wrote. If I was “in love,” I wrote. If I was struggling with a decision or a relationship, I wrote.  If I just needed to get something off my mind, I wrote it out. 
3. Along the same lines as therapy, writing is also one of my personal conflict resolution methods…Once it was on that paper, it was “done” for me.  Decisions, heartbreak, explanations…all of it was more easily settled for me on paper.  During the toughest times in my first marriage, I wrote letters to my then husband, and I actually mailed them to him in our mailbox.  I know he received them, but whether or not he actually read them is still a question for me, but I wrote them. I told him how I was feeling. I let him know what I was struggling with, and I did it in the most diplomatic, loving way I could.  That’s what writing is for me. It’s the sound part of my emotions and senses.  I cannot always say it how it should be said in person, but if I am given a chance to think about it and write it and, then edit it before “speaking,” it always turns out so much better.    It doesn’t always WORK to solve my problems, but it gets it off my chest and in a manner I can feel good about instead of regretting the way I handled it later…which is what happens if I let my emotions take over before I have a chance to get to the computer or pen and paper.

Now, mostly my writing is online, which was a natural progression from the pen and paper journals and letters I wrote so often when I was younger.  So, blogging has become an extension of those journals, and even though I hold back at times with the public nature of online writing verses my hand-written journals, my current goal is to attempt to be as transparent with my blog as I have always been with my personal writing at home.  And of course, the last but not least reason I blog is because I enjoy it. I have always enjoyed writing…don’t know why, but I just do. It’s in my blood. When I go too long without writing, I actually miss it and begin to get urges to write again….like an addiction, I suppose.  A good type of addiction…what are you addicted to that’s good for you?  And here’s another one for you…I told you why I blog, but why do you read blogs?   J

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