Random

I've done this blogging thing for just over three years, and I admit that as time goes by, I am ambivalent about it, why I started it in the first place, why I continue. I have a lot of things I used to do for fun: photography, horses, ceramics and pottery, needlework, genealogy to name a few. I've run hot and cold on all of them over the years, never giving any of them up completely. I think this blog started on a whim. Are you familar with the signs of depression? One of them is "Loss of interest in normal daily activities. You lose interest in or pleasure from activities that you used to enjoy." to quote directly. And I found that fitted me too well, it was a major factor in my depression, that I would look at things that used to make me enthusiastic, and think, "can't be bothered". When I began to feel better/worse/better I wanted to distract myself with something new, and although keeping a journal was always a sometime thing, I started to think that maybe an online journal of sorts would do. Much like with photography, when I'd get a really good image, look at it, and then it would go in a box. Then I began taking photo classes, with the opportunity to show what I had done to others, to have them comment on it, it was far more satisfying. I've heard that that is the difference between a talented amateur and a true artist -- an artist would create even if no one ever saw their work. So that puts me in the amateur rank for sure. All of my life I have searched for "pats" ; when my kids were small we called them warm fuzzies, you know, at-a-girls. Sometimes I would volunteer to do really difficult and time consuming work, just for the kudos after it was done. Petty, isn't it? As time goes by, and I understand more of what motivates me to do the things I do, I'm finding that my feet of clay go 'way past the knee....

When I originally set up this blog, I put the category as "humor" but rapidly realized I wasn't anywhere near funny enough to pull that off, and changed it to "personal journal". And initially I told no one at all about it. I was surprised when a site counter told me that people were actually reading it (for at least 30 seconds, thanks to blog explosion), but I've found that thinking I would gain an "explosion" of traffic was a trifle optomistic on my part. And so I told my husband, my best friend, and my therapist how to find my site. I'm not sure any of them actually made any more than a token effort to read here, and I (mostly) don't mind. So what about now, when I can read back over my "compositions" and make the dispassionate assessment that I'm a pretty poor writer? Do I continue? I'm still thinking about it.

But meanwhile, I've still got half of November to go for NaMoBloPo....