So here I am, blogging again. Yes, I've done this before. I started my first blog shortly after I turned thirteen. I'm not sure why. Maybe to tell the world about the time I accidentally-on-purpose put sweetened condensed milk in my hair? To make sure everyone knew how annoyed I was when my video tape of Random Harvest cut off right before I could find out if Greer Garson's amnesiac husband recognizes her or not? (SPOILER ALERT: He does. Roll credits.) I guess I started a blog because everyone else was doing it, and I knew it wasn't as dangerous as jumping off a bridge.
After about a year of writing such profound posts as those, it dawned on me that my blog was pointless and fairly self-absorbed, so I quit. But even if I hadn't stopped then, I know now I wouldn't have continued blogging much longer. A few months after I shut my blog down, my mom had her first seizure in years, and we found out that the lesion on her brain had grown. I was fourteen years old, in that terribly awkward stage between child and adult, but my mom's cancer pushed me headlong into the adult world. That blog I had started? It was bubblegum pink and dripped with smilies and exclamation points. I could barely look at it without gagging, much less post anything.
The next blog I started was dark brown and the subject matter was death. Juxtaposition, much? A few days after my mom's funeral, I was sitting by a playground on the beach, ranting to my sister about all the insensitive comments I'd received. It was the most cathartic experience I've ever had. I wanted to be angry. Anger was familiar; grief was not. I needed to feel something besides the numbness. My sister suggested that I channel my crazy emotions into writing about funeral etiquette. Let's just say that after swapping horror stories, we both agreed there was a need for education in that area. I had been to over fifteen funerals before I turned fifteen, so I was no stranger to death, but I gained such a different perspective on things when it was my family getting all the casseroles and flowers. That blog never really got off the ground though. Death is not easy to write about, to say the least. I didn't want to claim that my own experiences were the norm, because I had ample proof even within my own family that people deal with grief in different ways. I also didn't want my friends to be paranoid about having offended me, when in fact, there were so many dear people who surrounded me with the love of Christ and helped me more than they'll ever know. So once again, my blog fizzled out.
Third time's a charm, yes? Hopefully, this will be a middle ground between my last two attempts at bloggery. I started this mainly for my Florida friends who might want to know what I'm up to way out there in Idaho. I am going to miss so many of you. It will be hard to leave my church, where people have known me since I was stealing cardboard bricks from other kids in the nursery (and I don't mean that time last week...). I think all the women in my church should get giant Titus 2 plaques for investing so much time in my life. No one can replace a mother, but they did a great job of filling in the gaps.
I'm not sure if I'll have the time and inclination to blog a lot while I'm in school, but I will try my best. Watch and laugh as I learn about this magical phenomenon...what do they call it again? Snow? Yes, I think that's it...
And for all the people who ask me why in the world I'm going to Idaho...
In the immortal words of Rhoda Morganstern, "...because it's cold there, and I figured I'd keep better."
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