why do I blog???

A few days ago I was reading a friend's blog and she was wondering about blog etiquette... You know, whether you should leave comments when you visit someone's blog, etc... personally, I do leave comments sometimes... but only if I already know the person and have something I want to say... and I try to keep them short... I certainly don't do it to be polite...

After thinking about my friend's post, I wondered... why is it that I started keeping this blog? At one point I thought I never would... I always thought blogging was kind of weird... I mean who wants to read about my life...? The answer is that at first it was a way to share parts of me with people that I have little other contact with... A picture here an experience there. And in fact for the fist year after I started sharing, I didn't even archive anything, after about 30 days the posts expired... Initially my reasons for joining blogspot was two friends (twin sisters from the old-old days... you know... gasp, High School...) that are both serious and successful writers and they blog for the benefit of their book and magazine article following. Their joint blog is a way to have a dialog with fans. But they are so busy with their lives and writing that they do a lot less email and they actually suggested that I keep them updated this way.

Since blogs can be followed with an RSS feed that is their preference with most info they read... a quick scan all in one place... I doubt they come very often to my blog to read and I don't usually visit theirs, partly because what they write revolves around very different topics than I am comfortable in my world with. They understand and are okay with that... They don't really get me all the time either. Our core belief systems are different and our lives have gone in very different paths. They probably don't care to read about my temple trips and I don't enjoy some of the bantering that goes on with their fans, because of the language some use... but I watch for personal comments they make which they flag with a specific weekly tag, when those show up in my RSS feed... They taught me how to use this feature and it is the way they scan my info. Wow... I got really off topic there...

Over the last year my reasons for continuing to blog have evolved... and I decided recently that I started writing for me a few months ago... It's the same reason I journal... and this blog ends up being the public version of my journal... it's the parts that I don't care if others read... and a way to share my PollyAnna thinking with others... My alter ego PollyAnna is my reminder to stop whining and get on with being happy. Whining just bores other people and make you feel worse anyway...

And with that revelation, I realized that I really don't necessarily think about who is reading my blog... although I admit that I appreciate comments... but I don't think to much about the specific people reading my words... because if I think about that, I get self conscious and I can't write at all, I would start writing for them, and really I write here as a do in my journals as a way to "mark my place," in my book of life.

Oh and in case you have been following this journey, here and there... and noticed that I change the name of the blog and color palette... yet again... Truth is, this name especially feels more like the fit I wanted from the beginning, but didn't really know how to get myself there, I guess that needed to evolve too... and I am pretty sure I will leave it with this name, from here out. I am just a little surprised that it's been such a fun journey for me...