I blog, therefore I am...

...likely to sleep a bit more peacefully tonight.

This is my second attempt at blogging. The first one I have (for all intents and purposes) disabled. It's kind of like an unimproved lot. It has one final post on it and that's the way it will stay. I've moved into a new space in life, so my blog needs to reflect the life change. So it goes.

I stopped blogging before for a variety of reasons, now I feel compelled to start again. Why? Let me explain...

The last time that I was blogging, Sally and I gave each other access to our (respective) "super secret" blog site. You know, the kind where you write the stuff that goes on in your head that no one else can hear, but finds it's way on to the written page.

She had been blogging for a long time. When I started reading her blog, I found that I became inspired to try my hand at it. I thought that it would be good for me. Truth is that it was! It was very good for me. It allowed me to talk about stuff that was going on inside my head, but had no way of getting out. Yes, it was somewhat cathartic, but the more important point was that I got to be with all those thoughts, sort through and think about them. It was incredibly valuable.

One of the things that we did was invoke a ground rule -- we'd not use the blog to speak to one another directly. That was fine in principle, but horrible in practice. No, it's not all on her either. I had my fair share of problems with it, but I did pretty damn good.

What we found was that we started censoring ourselves (what we'd say on the blog) in an attempt to manage the blowback -- and, boy howdy, was there blowback! Operationally, that was a real problem and the beginning of the end of my blogging.

You see, it's a bit problematic to have all of these thoughts running through your head, write them down and NOT expect to interact with your significant other about. It's extremely tough. And when it became a barrier to communicating with each other, I decided that I was done with it. When we split up (for what I thought was for good), I decided that I would keep a journal instead of a blog.

At the time, I thought that one of the "lessons learned" was that it doesn't matter if what I write is visible to the public or not, the important part was that I write. Well, I've come to find that this wasn't quite true. As it turns out, my attempts at keeping a journal were a miserable failure. I just wasn't disciplined enough. I admire those that can do it. I couldn't.

The other thing worth noting about it is that while I don't write this for you, I do write differently because I know you are going to read it. I think through what I am trying to say. I read it from how I think you may read it. I go through a number of iterations on something, because I know I might have someone interact with me on it. That's enough of a motivation to have me want to blog again. While it's likely no one will ever read these posts but me, I am still going through the process of writing this way. It frees me up to say what needs to get said and do it responsibly.

And, quite frankly, the past months have been busy. Lots of stuff is clogging up my "brain housing unit" and I have just got to get it out of there. These thoughts do me no good unexamined. You'll see what I mean as I go along.

I am also on the fence about whether to tell anyone (including my previous followers, including one person specifically) that I am blogging again. The only reason that I am considering telling her is that she asked me to tell her... and she read most (if not all) of what I wrote before. That may be enough to push me over the edge to do it. We'll see.

I am also not trying to gain followers or any of that. I really don't care about that. I (kind of) did before, but I no longer have any attention on that. Really, the thing that I wanted before wasn't so much to have followers, but to have people to interact with. Folks that would toss their two cents in and mix it up a bit. This isn't just about my point of view. My view of things changes as I interact with people and come to see things newly. This isn't being a "flip flopper", it's a logical response to how life unfolds. As I grow and evolve, I expect that my point of view will change.

Anyway, I am glad to be back blogging again. I already feel a huge sense of relief from being able to write. Step one behind me. Many more steps to go. Or as Robert Frost wrote "... and miles to go before I sleep".