still here
One year ago today, I started this blog. While much has changed over the last year—The Pumpkin going from baby to toddler, our kitchen getting remodeled, me leaving SAHDhood behind for a non-education-related job and The Pumpkin going to daycare—I’m still here, still writing it all down, when I can (if I haven’t crashed by 10 p.m., that is). I’ve started and stopped writing practice regimens more times than I can remember, abandoned half-empty journals and ignored books by famous people admonishing me that real writers write every day. But somehow, this time, I’m still here, and this blog is now one year old. You know, I didn’t really think I’d make it.
I think it has to do with my subject matter. Writing about becoming a dad (first stay-at-home and now working outside the home), about learning to parent with my wife and partner, about watching our babygirl grow and change and turn into this amazing little person—I can’t run out of material. And along the way, the promise of community, of a cure for isolation, that made me a blog reader in the first place has blossomed into so much more than I ever expected. I’ve made friends with people whose writing I admire and whom I’ve never actually met, and I’ve been lucky enough to finally meet some of them in person. I’ve made connections with folks who care about the same issues as me, and helped to start and expand dialogue around those issues across the blogosphere.
By writing about the people I love and the crazy journey we’ve taken together, I’ve fallen in love again with writing. I’m the nerdy kid who, when we had to draw what we wanted to be when we grew up in 2nd grade, turned in a picture of a guy with glasses and a beard, at a desk, with pens and a typewriter next to a writing award (a Newberry, since that was the only one i knew of at the time). Now, by some strange twist of fate, I’m reading and writing blogs for a living. Life has had a way of getting in the way of me keeping up with that old love, but now it’s life that’s brought me back to it.
I may not have written as much or as often as I would’ve liked in the past year, but I’ve written more, and more consistently, than I ever have before, inspired by the people and things closest to my heart. So, on my first blogaversary, I thank you for being a part of this. If you’re a lurker, delurk and say hi. If you’ve never looked at my older stuff, check out my archives and fill up the comment sections on those old posts that were written before iWeb had commentability. And wish me luck that, in a year’s time, I’m still here—’cause I know there’s so much more to say.
Friday, January 19, 2007