Blog Messy

My first "blog" type thing was the one that came with my MySpace account. I started writing in it during the summer of 2005, right after I'd graduated from high school, musing about my brief first romance (SS+KB, rest in peace) and my job at the family catering company and my expectations for college. And I just wrote these little posts, these ridiculous and embarrassing little posts, with primitive emojis. I couldn't know how cringe-inducing those posts would be someday, but the point was just that I had things on my mind and I had a place to write those things down while simultaneously sharing them with my curated group of MySpace friends. There was something about that combo -- the self-reflection + mild publicity -- that really appealed to me, and for the few years that I stayed with MySpace and wrote my assorted posts, that blog became the most consistent record of my life that I've ever kept.

Concurrent with and then following the MySpace days, I'm sure I've started ten to fifty other blogs. Most of them are completely lost from my memory now; I have no idea what I called them or what I thought I'd use them for. But, you know, that writing impulse was still there. It's always been there for me, in some iteration, and there are rare moments in my life when said impulse wins out over laziness and forgetfulness. Most notably, I had a daily style blog for a while *more cringe, more cringe* and I've contributed pretty faithfully to a group blog for the past two years and change.

This blog -- skish -- is something I think about waaaaaay more than one could surmise from looking at the post frequency. I think about what goals I have with it, how to structure it in the future, what topics to focus on, what vibe I want it to have, how I can find the time to write and pre-write and promote and network (and do I even want to network? me, the all-time introvert?). I get it all worked out in my brain, and then the follow-through is crap. And that gets me to wondering, does a blog (this blog) need to be something polished and branded? Does it need to be that way in order to have merit? Does it need to be that way for me to feel like I'm doing it right?

I don't remotely have the expertise to wax poetic about how blogging has changed over the past however many years. It has, obviously, but other people who are more well-equipped to talk about that change and who witnessed it up close have written a whole lotta stuff about how that transpired and what it means and what it says. My experience of being a blog reader has been really inspiring at times, very aspirational (in a good way). Putting together a solid blog, with a vision and valuable content and beautiful images, is a lot of work, and I benefit from that work as a reader. Don't change, professional/highly-skilled-amateur bloggers. You do you. But is that the approach for me?

I'm not tidy or polished. Just look at my hair on literally any day of the year -- it is messy, and that messiness is an accurate outer reflection of my inner world. Honestly, I like it that way. Somehow, though, I feel like my unkempt way of writing and planning and being in the world isn't quite ... right ... in terms of how blogs operate now. This isn't my random MySpace page anymore, is it? I mean, I spent $10 of good PayPal money for my blog theme, I've can't just spew whatever random thoughts all over it. (Note to future Sara: in case you're note sure, that last sentence was sarcastic, yes.)

My Monday night navel-gazing is making it super clear that I'm being a weirdo about this. Geez louise, lady, you don't need a business plan or a posting schedule -- just write what you feel like and relax. It's allowed. There are no blog police out there waiting to slap you with a citation. Write about the way the baby in your belly makes weird swimming motions that are very unsettling as you try to fall asleep at night. Write about the latest episode of "Girls" and how amazing it was (because it so was). Write about sex, write about the artificial Christmas tree parts you just inherited from your sister-in-law, write about extended family gatherings and how you feel like such a misfit, write about how you have a theft problem in your neighborhood and you imagine a roving band of burglars haunting the streets at night. It's fine. And maybe the blog will morph over time into something more focused, and maybe not, but you'll be writing. You'll be recording your life, and that was the point of all of it.