I woke up early this past Sunday morning, before 7:00 am. I went downstairs with no particular idea of what I might like to do with this time to myself, since my family was still sleeping. But then an idea struck me and what I thought was, “I should drive 12 miles to our closest Wegmans to pick up a few items for my Christmas shopping list.”
Wegmans, for the initiated is a large, fancy-ish grocery store chain primarily in the mid-Atlantic states. This is not the first time I have had this idea when waking up early on a weekend morning. First of all, Wegmans is huge and has everything. They also have a large section of delicious looking prepared foods like every kind of cookie imaginable and a really nice coffee bar. I like going there with my son when my husband is at work, but what I really like going there alone!
I have this impulse sometimes, to go to places alone. I love my husband and my son, but sometimes what I really need is to wander and explore places on my own. It is not like I am even searching for any very interesting when I have this impulse to go to Wegmans. It is just that when I am with other people, they might want to look at other things that interest them and I usually surrender to group-think. But there is a part of me that cannot be tamed and sometimes I prefer to roam the grocery store or whatever by myself.
There is a part of me that is a wild buffalo who wants to roam. As hokey as it sounds, I found the song Neil Young song “Long May You Run” come into my head while I was analyzing my thoughts. To me this song is a celebration of the wild spirit in all of us. It is hard to tame the wild spirit in me that just wants to roam sometimes on my own. Listen to it on Youtube if you wish, it might awaken the wild spirit within you!
I decided not to go to Wegmans because I only wanted to buy a few items and could wait till later in the week to pick them up. Instead, I opened up my blog and wrote about my impulse to drive to Wegmans. That is one of the things that this blog is about for me.
I don’t know if I would have found what I was looking for by taking that trip to Wegmans on Sunday morning. I would certainly have had time alone but:
1) I would still had that time to myself at home while my family was still sleeping.
2) I probably would not have found what I was looking for and my trip might not have given me satisfaction.
Yet, I did feel satisfaction when I started writing this blog post on Sunday morning. So thank you WordPress and thank you blog readers!
I was initially nervous about going live with my blog in May. I started this blog in early 2016, not long after Patrick was born. For a while, I thought that if I just wrote in a blog but did not make it public , the blog would still be a place to share my thoughts.
What I found is that when my blog was not public, I did not write for it. It was like one of the many diaries I have abandoned over the years. I have a habit of writing a few pages in a diary then abandoning it.
As a library student then a librarian, I have had more than 10 year of practice writing posts for library blogs. Sometimes my posts were content that readers might have an interest in, like a book or movie review, but often my posts were lists of upcoming library events or new items that were recently acquired. I rarely participated in the social aspects of blogging. As part of my job, I would sometimes alert the library staff member in charge of our Facebook accounts that I had a new library blog post, but often I did not even go that far and I definitely did not participate in online or offline discussions about my blog posts.
It was only after I made this blog public in May that I began to understand the social aspect of blogging. I always knew that blogs were considered social media, but I was not willing to participate in the social media aspect of blogging for more than a year because I was afraid that people would learn too much about me in this way. What I found was that sharing my blog on Facebook and making my blog visable to the public was the best possible thing I could do. Blogging has become one of my major hobbies in the last six months and I am finding an enjoyment in writing for it that I never imagined. I always enjoyed writing for school projects and work but I have found that writing for myself is even better than that.
I am grateful for all the support I have received on Facebook and on WordPress during these last 6 months, your support has meant the world to me. It has kept me writing. It has encouraged me in this creative pursuit.
I am a grateful that I have gotten to know others better too through this blog. Sometimes people I know comment that they are experiencing similar feelings and it helps me know them better too. This is blog is helping forge new bonds and renew old bonds.
Additionally, blogging socially has opened me up to the network of bloggers who are embarking on a similar quest as I am am. I feel like I have discovered a whole new community of readers and writers who are interested in sharing with one and other.
At times, I felt like I lost some of my identity after making the decision to become a stay-at-home parent two years ago, but working part-time and blogging, as well as parenthood, have helped me forge a new identity.
When I blog I feel like a wild buffalo running. The writing aspect of blogging is something that I do on my own, but I also feel like I am running with all of you since you are reading it and responding and I am reading your blogs too.
Long may we run!
Thank you readers!
