For a long time I have thought that posting a blog for purposes other than updating family and friends on major life events was and is slightly, if not blatantly, narcissistic. Even reading blogs and especially reading them and not commenting or letting the reader know you read their blog is voyeuristic. Stalker-ish even, maybe? Mea culpa, but I digress and that is another story. My husband has been on my back for a long, long time trying to get me to set up a blog. In fact, he did this for me. Thanks, by the way, Andrew. I have balked it for a long time mostly because I am a private person and have never been one for “tooting my own horn” or making a display of myself. The web log, “blog,” is the Internet Age’s way of screaming, “Look at me! I am a person just like you, but I MUST be so much more interesting than you are because I am writing online and I have gotten people to read it.” Comments equal love and popularity. You are one of the “cool kids” if you blog. Slightly distasteful, in my meager opinion. I still hold these opinions, but here I am, anyway. Look at me! Read me! I am important, too! There. Happy? On to “tooting”…

 

Since my childhood days of learning the alphabet, I have had a love affair with the written word. At the age of nine, I had these little notebooks and I would jot down little tidbits and simple little poems about nature and time. I started journaling in earnest at the age of eleven. I started my first novel at the age of twelve on a little electric typewriter. Clack, clack, clack; clack, clack. I loved how important that noise sounded. At fourteen my absolute favorite Christmas present that year was my Webster’s Encyclopedic Unabridged Dictionary of the English Language. I have grown up being a reader. I recall a fourth grade field trip walk to the library and frozen yogurt shop that went awry and the library visit was cut and we went directly to the yogurt shop. I may have been the only one totally disappointed to get a frozen yogurt sans book. I majored and earned my B.A. in English because I wanted to go to college, but all I really wanted to do there was read and dissect novels and writing. I brought three books on my two-week honeymoon and after the first week I was finished with them all and searching for anything not in Spanish at the resort in Cancun. I brought books with me to the hospital for the births of both of my children, just in case I had any spare time to read. It’s a life long story. All that to say this: Any idiot can blog, but if there were qualifications, I would have them.

 

It is not in my personality to do things like this, but perhaps it’s about time I checked that portion of my personality. Maybe I do have something to say and it’s worth something and perhaps someone does want to read it. I have wasted so much time worrying about what others might think of me, how things reflect upon me. I have held myself to these lofty ideals. “Blog? Nah. It seems so narcissistic, don’t you think? ”

 

Behold yet another Narcissus. And we all fall down.