From Cockroaches to Blogging

One of my friends made a comment on how amazing it is that I write so often. This was my explanation to her and several others in that email group of why it is I write:

When I was really young (second or third grade), my mother instructed me one day that I should write my grandmother. She was quite insistent about it, in fact. And just like many people, I was struggling with what to write about. In the course of these awkward beginnings, Mom made some suggestions, and I took it and ran with it. One of the lines for which I became famous with my grandmother and aunt was this one: "We are all fine, even the cockroaches." I totally forgot about the letter and that particular line. But months later, when I visited my grandparents, I was greeted with much enthusiasm and was addressed as "The Letter Writer,” a title I found I really enjoyed. And at that young age, I quickly picked up that it was the small things like references to cockroaches that made getting a letter from me so much fun for them. This was probably my first positive experience with writing, and by golly, if it made me a celebrity with my grandmother, it really couldn't be such a bad thing! I began to enjoy writing... more so because I knew my audience enjoyed it than that I liked the process so much.

There were various writing-related incidents during my adolescent years that gave me enough affirmation for me to recognize writing as a talent, and indeed, I began to see it as something that gave me identity. In high school, fierce competition with my cousin in Typing class led to my taking a shine to keyboarding as well. So I combined the two.

One thing I did not enjoy, however, was the act of keeping a diary. I always thought that I SHOULD like it, but I never did. I have umpteen nice little journals that were given to me over the years. Every year as a New Year’s Resolution, I would determine that I WILL keep a diary this year, but it would rarely last past March. Somehow it always seemed pointless to write something that shouldn't be shared with others. If I looked back at those entries, I would always be so embarrassed that I'd take an exacto knife and cut it out of the book.

In 1998, when some of us girls took a train trip out west from Chicago to Washington state--that was the birth of a new kind of writing for me. I began to see the importance of recording the things that I experienced. We kept a journal of the trip and made it into a spiral-bound book. Looking back at the experience now, if it hadn't been for that journal, that trip would be nothing more than a vague memory and a waste of money. But now, we can always pick up the book, remember, and relive each memory. So often, we say, "I would've totally forgotten about that...."

In 2000, we did the same thing when we went to Europe. And I cannot tell you how much fun it is to have all the things we experienced in writing.

And then I started blogging, and this is where I am to date. The best thing about a blog is that it can be a topic as insignificant as the penny you found on the sidewalk or something really important. There's no pressure to make sure your audience gets a good read because those people who are reading it are there voluntarily, and if they don't want to bother with the toad in my window well, they can either skip it and go on to something else, or simply go to the next blog.

I guess writing does for me what singing does for you, Jeanene; what mentoring does for you, Dolores; what cooking does for you, Rita; what making other people think they're the best thing this side of the ocean does for you, Brenda and Amy. And so if you don't mind that I sing with no finesse or that I burn my food when I cook and turn my coasters wrong-side-up and am not good with people in general, I do not mind if you don't write as often as I do.

So yes, although I am probably just as busy as you are, writing has become such an integral part of ME that to take it away would be like a death of part of me. So no, it's not amazing, in fact. It's just me being me.