I had never considered starting a blog before. And I'm not quite sure why. Maybe it was lack of time. Or it could have been the desire to spend the spare time I had doing something that required as few brain cells as possible. But, most likely, it was because of privacy, or lack thereof. I'm a quiet person and I've always valued physically writing down my thoughts.
Well, maybe not always.
My grandma gave me my first diary when I was 9 or 10 years old. It was pretty high quality on the diary scale, with a page for every day of the year and a lock that really didn't matter when my mischievous brother was around. But by the end of that year, I hadn't filled in more than two or three pages.
My grandma nagged me every time she visited: "Have you been using your diary?" I always told her yes and then worried that she'd run upstairs to my room, grab my diary from its hiding spot beneath a pile of Beverly Cleary books, open to its blank pages and discover I was lying. Of course, my Christmas gift from her the following year was another diary, to replace the one that I'd so anxiously filled the previous year.
Right.
But something strange happened in the next couple years -- I started to take my grandma's advice. During my transition from sixth grade to seventh, I started to write down my fears, loves and general thoughts in a looseleaf notebook, much less constricting than the predated paper I was used to. I've been keeping some sort of a journal ever since. Writing down my thoughts helps me think, if that makes sense. It takes time, a millisecond, maybe more, for your pen to write the word your brain comes up with. And that time helps me slow down and filter my thoughts when there are too many to comprehend.
But in the 10 or so years since I've been in sixth grade, the definition of writing has changed. Now, "writing" a paper, report, letter, etc. usually doesn't mean that a pen will be involved.
So maybe more than anything else this blog is a surrender to technology.
It could be a sign of the free time I've had since graduation.
Or maybe my boredom with VH1, MTV, reality TV and other mindless entertainment.
Whatever the reason, I can tell you one thing the birth of this blog doesn't signal: the end of my journal. You know, the one that needs a pen.
1 comment:
Jeez Kendra, if someone reads my blog, then yours.. they'd would say I am writing from a 2nd grade level. In middle school and high school I considered myself a decent writer, now after 4 years of Marketing classes... I can't compete!!!! Nice start to your blog.
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