Blogging

I was reading Michelle's blog post about what blogging is to her and it got me to thinking. What is blogging to me?

As Michelle mentioned, some people - those who saw blogging as a networking opportunity - are beginning to feel that blogging is a dying form. In a way, I agree with them. The blog as the social network tool wasn't as effective as some had hoped it would be. It was too hard to stay interesting, to keep up the face while still being intimate and reachable, and to optimize search engine results.

For others, blogging is alive and well. Why? Well, because instead of using a blog to try to promote our businesses, we just used it as a way to put our thoughts out there where people could see them without forcing those who aren't interested to hear them.

For me, blogging is a form of journalling. I can easily let my family and friends know what's going on with me, what I'm thinking, how life is going, without having to spend time on the phone scrambling for which bit of information to give them next. I can write something, look at it, edit out any unnecessary emotional crap (I sometimes tend to wax depressive if it's early enough in the morning or late enough at night), and then post it. It's a way of telling everyone how things are doing in a coherent fashion.

Blogging also helps me sort things out in my own head. I can blog about - for example - how Ryan's death affected me, and I can sort out whether I still have things to deal with on that front, and at the same time I can let the people who care know "Yeah, I still miss this guy."

I don't know that I could be as intimate with people in person as I am in my blog. There are a few exceptions to that, Dearest and his mom being two of them, my close friend Emma being another one. Aside from people who are close to me like that, I have a really hard time just sitting down and actually telling someone everything - and if I do get to the place where I can open up and start talking about personal stuff, I tend to venture way far into the "I didn't really need or want to know that" zone.

So I blog. I put my randomness, my craziness, the ways I'm growing and the ways I still need to grow into this blog, and a few others, and it helps me. It helps me process, it helps me feel connected, and sometimes it helps me more than I can say to get things out of my head so I can cope.

Except for when I'm trying to keep a secret like my super top secret anniversary plans (lol).