Taking the Plunge

As I write my inaugural post, I find myself wondering: why? Why another blog? I frankly don't have time to write one, and I doubt you have time to read it. I know I already have a hard time keeping up with the short list of blogs I like to visit. So why clutter things up with yet another?

Of course I would like to think that maybe somewhere along the way I will write something that will be a help or encouragement to someone I care about. And indeed that would be a salutary thing. But over the past few days of creating this blog I have come to realize that my primary motivation is a selfish one. The truth is that I am doing this for me.

I am a 42-year-old wife and mom who is completely content with my vocation. I know that what I do every day matters to the people I care most about, and I have no desire to complicate my life with a "career." At the same time, in the last few years I have started to feel like I am losing myself in the blur of life. There was a time when my accomplishments consisted of things like the book I had just read, or the paper I had just written, or the piano sonata I had just learned. There was a tangibleness to those things that was very satisfying. But these days my most important achievements are largely invisible. I cook a meal; it gets eaten. I finally reach the bottom of the laundry basket; within a day it's filled again. I know that what I do in these areas is valuable, but it's frustrating that they are so ephemeral. By far the most worthwhile expenditure of my time-- listening to and encouraging my husband and children--is even more abstract.

So how can a blog--a virtual location in cyberspace--possibly offer the concreteness that I seem to be longing for? Ironically, in just the few days I have been constructing this one, I have rediscovered something of myself. In putting together my "profile," I have remembered some of the books that made an impression on me, the music I used to listen to, and the movies I particularly enjoyed. I have asked myself, "What am I really interested in?" and "What do I care about?" It has been fun to pull it all together. And I have also gleaned a lot of pleasure from the sheer orderliness of it all. Everyday life may be a chaotic mess, but a peek at my nice, neat blog gives me hope that I might be able to handle it after all!