Hello to all six of my followers! And to the hundreds of others who regularly check my blog, of course. As evidenced by the date on this post, and the date on the previous post, my New Year’s Resolution to write a weekly blog was an epic fail. But! The writing bug has bit me again, so I’m back at it in full force.
To be honest, I had intended to start blogging again a few weeks back. I graduated from college (hooray!) and found myself avoiding packing up my apartment during the many hours of the day I wasn’t at work. I asked Jenn, my best friend at school, what I should do with my homework-free life, and she reminded me that I have been sorely lacking in the writing department. Word to the wise: Jenn is always right. I am the first to tell others this fact, but not always the first to accept it myself, so I put off my writing for another few weeks.
I had my reasons, in my defense. The first half of my last semester in college was consumed with a little thing called an “undergraduate thesis.” Not as big as a Master’s Thesis, and certainly not a dissertation, but a taxing feat nonetheless. After three or four drafts, the project was bordering on 40 pages (plus bibliographies), and it would be an understatement to say that my advisor and I weren’t getting along. In actuality, every time I received an email from her, I cried. The project itself was overwhelming, and with the clock ticking away, I just wanted to turn the darn thing in and never look at it again. I received a “Pass with Excellence,” had another reviewer tell me that I am a brilliant writer, but never received a word of praise from her (a waif of a poet whose high opinion I have valued for the past three years). So, writing and I have not been friends. It also doesn’t help that I get my most creative ideas late at night, when I am not actually in a fit physical state to write them properly (I’m of the “early to bed, early to rise” category). The blogs, the poems, the short stories, even the emails were all put on hold due to lack of inspiration.
It came this week. Finally getting settled back in with my family, I picked up my copy of The Kite Runner by Khaled Hosseini (which I think I bought over spring break and hadn’t gotten around to it). It is a glorious book, and the first of what I’m sure will be many book recommendations made on this blog. I’m not finished with it yet, but it takes a brilliant writer to give tragedy such complexity and heart. It filled my soul back up, and reminded me why writing is such an important part of our history as humans.
The second reason is my new job. I’m doing some publicity work for a local publishing company, and part of my role is to contact some big-name “Mommy Bloggers” who write columns for parenting websites. Yes, they are mostly women, hence the nickname. This has been a strange task, because I am not a mom and do not intend on becoming one for quite some time. Most of the articles are product reviews which, clearly, have no relevance to my personal life. But today I came across a website with some of the best bloggers I’ve ever read. Oh boy, these writers are good! And they don’t just write reviews, or share pithy details about their babies’ teething experiences (all good to know, for a new mom who just isn’t me). They write about the role of motherhood in the political arena, about teaching your children to be socially conscious, about healthy introductions to potential vices, about the environmental impact of having children in this day and age. They write articles that I, a 22 year old college graduate with no house, no boyfriend, no children, not even a dog to call my own, am absolutely gobbling up. Oh my goodness, I want to do that! Yep, that was me just this morning. So here I am!
It’s no surprise that I’ve come running back to my first love. We all do, don’t we? My books and my stories are the center of my universe. I took a class on John Milton’s “Paradise Lost,” and called my nightly reading sessions my “dates” because I was spending so much time and energy with this particular author. At the end of the semester, I posted a Facebook status about how I had broken up with my “boyfriend John,” and got several sympathetic text messages in return, usually mentioning that the sender hadn’t known I was seeing anyone in the first place. It was good for a laugh, and also very telling of my committment to (obsession with?) writing. So I’m back. There is a short story beginning in a Word document on my computer. This post will go up in a just a few minutes, and maybe even a poem or two will find their way into a notebook tonight before bed. And all will come with a sigh of relief, like slipping on my favorite sundress that was a little tight at the end of last summer, but which zips up just fine now. Like drinking hot chocolate with my feet covered by an afghan and watching the rain through the living room window. Like finishing a book that I’ve read a hundred times and knowing that the end is still the same. It’s a great feeling, and it always comes with a smile.
(That was the end of the post, but I have to give a quick shout out to my very dear friend Jeremy– Jamblin Man, if anyone wants to follow HIS blog too!– who leaves for his trip around the world tomorrow! Be safe, take lots of pictures, write lots, and bring me back something pretty!)
Brilliant Title 