Jen Monday, April 26, 2010

So I'm scared to start this blog. I kept a journal from 13 to 30-ish (petered out when I became a mom, hm, that's interesting), and here's what they always looked like:


The purpose was always clear to me: purging and practicing. I was getting all the angst out of my system, and figuring out how to write. Every few months I'd spend an hour reading through my recent entries, and I was always like, "Damn. That's not bad." 

I never was particularly private with my journals. I left them lying around first my parents' house, then apartments shared with roommates, then apartments shared with my ex-husband, my son's father. It was a combination of trusting people not to read them, but also daring them to. I was a journal tease.  Also, I needed to record my life for future generations of literary scholars who would study my novels. Naturally. 

Two things happened: I had a baby, and everyone started blogging. I stopped journaling, because I was too tired and too busy to do it with a baby around, and also because the whole act or art or process of journaling was changing in the world around me. My marble composition books started to look old-school (now I think of them as vintage). Blogs freaked me out. They seemed to require some knowledge of html, whatever that was. You also had to do it everyday, from what I understood. And that marble composition book would be flung open for all the world to read, its blue-lined pages flapping in a cruel, virtual wind. It would be like my worst 8th grade nightmare: someone would steal my journal out of my locker and pass it around the hallways, the pages about masturbation ripped out and taped to the wall in the girls bathroom. 

Well, I'm starting to think most people don't really care about my masturbatory habits, or much of what I think about anything, really. And I'm ready to start journaling again, and maybe sharing some of what I've learned about co-parenting across the Atlantic ocean with my son's father, in case anyone wants to read about it. We have quite a positive thing going on here, despite all our fears to the contrary.

So welcome to my blog. Wish me luck, and faith in my voice. 

2 comments:

missris said...

Welcome! It's a fun community and you'd be surprised by how many people you'll meet and things you'll learn.

Dee Birks said...

It took me a long time to switch from my beloved notebooks to blogging. I had to be dragged kicking and screaming into the 21st century. I love blogging (you will too!) but I still have a secret stash of composition books in my nightstand drawer in case I need to write something!

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