Monday, June 24, 2013

secrets and sense-making

Seven years and seven hundred entries in this blog.

I'm celebrating with hot honey water.

You may not know it, but this is  a secret blog.  None of the people I spend my real life with know I even have one. I can't explain why I haven't even told my best friend - I just know that I couldn't write as freely as I do if I knew that she (however unjudgmental and supportive) was reading it.

Why not? Most of the things I write are no secrets to her anyway. And why the need for a public blog, as opposed to keeping a normal diary (which I do too) or letting my writings just sit on my hard drive? I like getting comments from strangers but I write even when I don't get any.

I use this blog to catalogue my life and try to make sense of it. To reassure myself that there are patterns and reasons and meaning in it. To be able to look back and see that interesting and funny things have happened, even though I doubt it sometimes. To remember the days of my life in Finland. To encourage someone. To leave something behind (if the internet doesn't die before I do). To have a creative outlet.

To survive, even.

2 comments:

Aruni RC said...

Life feels like something to be survived, rather than lived.

you catalogued the exact reasons why most of us continue to write. a catharsis, an outlet and the small glimmers in an otherwise grey existence when others stop by with a few words. makes one feel strong enough to carry on.

Different Pen said...

As they say, "We read to know we are not alone". Maybe the same holds true for writing.