I started this blog as an exercise in writing. At the time, I wanted to write, had written all my life, but since graduating college, had not shown anyone any of my work. In fact, I hadn't been working at all. Stuck in some kind of a tangle of fear, doubt, and just plain lack of discipline, I scribbled sentences and paragraphs in numerous notebooks and journals, but couldn't string together a cohesive piece, one that told a story - my story, someone else's story, any story at all.
When I first hit "publish," I did so with fear and trembling. I didn't want to be one of those bloggers who only had one post, ever. I straddled between worrying that I had nothing to say, to worrying that all I had to say was inane. Ultimately, it came down to this - was what I had to say worth saying and, more importantly, would anyone think I was worth listening to?
Over the years I've grown to write in a way that's personal, deeply intimate, and, in many ways, exposing of myself. I've explored my thoughts on faith, on forgiveness, on love, on food, on dating. I've opened the door on my depression, my breakups, my hopes and my fears. I'm not sure I started the blog with the intent to lay it all out there, but I've certainly learned the value of emotional openness through writing this blog. In so many ways, this blog is that bridge between where I am and where I want to be. I want to be this open in my day-to-day life, to be articulate, to say how I feel without an overwhelming fear that others will judge and reject me because of it. But life, being what it is, doesn't always lend itself kindly to emotional honesty. And I don't always have the strength to battle the things within myself that hold me back.
So I practice on this blog, formulating thoughts and opinions, putting them out in the world. There's a certain safety with this - I have the cover of being Absurd Cafe Girl. I can monitor comments and delete those that are openly hostile. I can state without having someone argue with me the moment these words leave my head, or as in this case, my keyboard. But there is also a certain risk with this. These posts, once out there, float on the Internet, open for interpretation by those who know me and those who do not. Those who read may wonder if I'm writing about them. Those who don't read the blog wonder if I write about them anyway.
At the end of the day, this blog has become an object lesson for a very important principle in my life. The world will always have an opinion about me whether I have an opinion about it or not. So I'd rather have an opinion and share it openly with the world, rather than be silent and let the world dictate to me the opinion I should have.
Nowadays, I write because I want to. Because I have something to say. Because I sincerely believe there are folks out there who are waiting for someone to say the things I do, to make a space where it's okay to talk about dating, about being single, about being sad, about being lonely, about being frustrated at hope deferred, about wondering where God is in all of this, about being hopeful anyway.
And because sometimes, absurd adventures are just too good not to share.
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