This week someone asked me why I started my blog.  I hadn’t really been asked that question in a while.  More recently, I have been asked what my blog is about and how I got part of the blog published, but this questions reminded me of the first time someone asked me to ponder the why of my blog.  About two years ago, I sat down with a friend to discuss the idea of me as a blogger.  This friend’s idea for me was more of a directive than a cool idea worth sharing.  She said, “You are a really good writer and you have a lot of great insights to share.  You should have a blog.”  Prior to our coffee date, she told me that she wanted to talk to me about designing a blog site at our coffee date.  However, I saw no reason to process any thoughts about the subject of a blog or the design of the page prior to the date.  The truth was that I didn’t even know what a blog was at the time my friend advised me to become a blogger.  I had never considered having a blog and I didn’t follow any blogs.  So, it seemed odd to me to spend a lot of time on something I knew very little about.  It all seemed confusing and complex.  Prior to my blog, I used journals to record my thoughts.  I explained to my friend that I decided not to journal on a regular basis because people are nosey and I have had my privacy violated in the past.  As a result, the notion that I had to put my thoughts in a venue for people to read freely felt frightening and foreign to me.

For years people said to me that I should write a book about parenting because my kids were such cool kids.  This friend who was encouraging me to blog had littles and we often talked about the job of parenting and our lives in the shadows of our families.  While I understood her beliefs about my insightful experiences from my shadow living and those opinions of others may have been true, I was overwhelmed by the possibility that I might actually give myself permission to use my emotional energy and my time for myself when I had so many responsibilities with my family.  Since I couldn’t see becoming a published author of a book in my near future, I thought that maybe I could share some stories.  I wanted to share stories about lessons that I learned in the various support roles in which I have served.  Even after agreeing to begin the mental exercise associated with defining the why, I honestly got anxious just thinking about publishing my thoughts for the world to see, read and critique.  Despite my resistance, my friend continued to email me assignments, then she checked on me periodically via text messaging to encourage me to continue to take the steps that got me closer to going live with the blog.  She would ask me how things were going, had I thought of a name yet, did I find words to describe the takeaways I wanted for my audience, and what categories I would use to label the site.  Oh, the pressure.  It took eight months of strong nudging by my friend to force me to complete the project and click the “live” button on the blog site.

So, part of the reason I became a blogger was because someone said I should and I trusted her and decided to just try.  Once I went through the exercise of thinking about the nexus between my life experiences I felt worthy of sharing, I realized that in every role I existed in the periphery and out of sight for most people who thought their view of the experience was complete.  Yet, my role in the shadows was critical to the success of the event or challenge.  In most of the situations, I experienced loneliness because nobody acknowledged my presence or my contributions.  I considered that I served even when people didn’t know I was serving and that I served for the benefit of my family and my community without an expectation of financial reward.  In retrospect, I think the only thing I really needed as a shadow dweller was some type of affirmation or gratitude.  Instead, I heard things like this from the aunt who used to say, “Every time I talk to you you are volunteering somewhere.  Why don’t you find something that pays?”  Her comments initially aggravated me, but the voice of my friend encouraging me to dig deeper into the why of my journey helped me to see that serving the village was special and beneficial to many.  As a result, I found another reason to blog: I wanted to offer encouragement to folks who might be going through some things in life and feeling alone.  I wanted to offer the caretakers of family members a caring, sincere, transparent voice to empower and enlighten them.

The reason I wrote anonymously at first was because I believed that people needed positive messages and insights to ease the burdens of their daily challenges and in the ways of a true shadow dweller my identity was not necessary in accomplishing that end.  I did not believe it was necessary that the people knew my name and I had become comfortable in the shadows.  The writing was cathartic for me and that was my take away from blogging.  In the past, I had discussions with people about my feeling and issues with my shadow living, but once I started writing there was nothing that freed me like putting the pen to the paper to clear my head and realign my soul.  The idea that I could empower others and find a place to sort through my issues was enough for me.  Being forced to write in order to generate blog posts revealed to me that I needed to use my gift of writing for the purpose of storytelling.  Surprisingly, what initially frightened me because I didn’t understand it became a slightly addictive curiosity that drew me to the blog site to write and to learn more about how to manage the technical aspects of my blog account independent of my friend.  Confronting a fear without a need to control or see the end offered me growth.

I started blogging because a friend said I needed to blog.  I continued to blog because I found a safe place to share my heart and my experiences and because my words had the power to encourage, empower, and enlighten others.  Now, I believe I am called to blog because of the lessons I have learned from blogging.  I have learned that everyone does not possess the same gifts, talents, or testimonies which means the universe missed my unique voice when I choose to silence it.  I have learned that like many folks there have been times when I failed to use my gifts and talents because I was comfortable doing something else or because the time didn’t seem right or because I was simply afraid.  At different points in my life I have used at least one of these reasons to explain why I avoided exploring the possibilities of ways to use my gifts of oration, storytelling, and written communication.  I continue to blog because the blog posts rarely ends like I believe it will end when I start writing.  Learning that I don’t have to know the end for the thing to end beautifully provides some trust to live more freely in other aspects of my life.  Selfishly, I blog because that part of me that found pleasure and a thrill after accomplishing a goal or “fixing” problems for people enjoys the rush when someone likes, comments or shares a blog post.  I get super excited when someone says that something I wrote helped them in any way.  I continue to blog because I have learned that most people do not like to admit that they are flawed or challenged.  So, the fact that I share my challenges and pain with my outside voice has the potential to touch someone else in a way that might never happen if I remained silent.  I continue to write because dissecting my life has enabled me to think through some things with a new, distant perspective.  My blog opened a a creative window in my mind that I kept sealed shut most of my life.  My creative window was closed and sealed because I considered the limitations I anticipated.  I envisioned and rehearsed mental scripts that included all of the things and people with the ability to restrict my ability to be successful doing me.  Once the window opened, I have experienced a continuous flow of ideas related to ways that I can express my passion to encourage, empower and enlighten villages of people who support young people.  My blog has affirmed my passion for being an excellent villager and presented opportunities to enter villages I never anticipated visiting because other people can see the pureness of my passion and the consistency of my heart and my voice.  The verbal expression, through my blog, has generated more opportunities for me to serve as a catalyst for others to step out of the shadows into a more expansive territory too.  That makes my soul sing.  I never expected that my decision to make a step into a vast, unknown scary place would inspire someone else to dare to experiment with possibility.  I continue to blog because I remain hopeful that something I write will bless the lives of young people, provide tangible truths, relatable life experiences, hope, inspiration and support to people in places I have not seen or imagined.