365 days + 109 posts = One Revised Me

One year... I started this blog one year ago! I don't think I ever really believed I'd keep it up, and I certainly never thought it'd become such a big part of my life.
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When I started this blog, I really just wanted to find my voice again. I was always a writer. I used to sit at my older sister's typewriter (the kind you had to manually return when you heard the little bell and wait until the glob of white-out dried when you made a mistake) and write stories...a million stories started but never finished when I was just 10 or 12 years old. I still have them.
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I used to walk around with wrinkled napkins in my purse, covered in notes...notes for nothing specific, really...just words, phrases, sentences, ideas. I was always inspired.
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Words have always been a tangible thing inside of me.
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But then I had kids.
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And although having these two little miracles running around can certainly serve as inspirational fodder, most of the time I was too exhausted and overwhelmed to be inspired. Find the right words to express a thought? Write a poem about a passionate kiss? Fulfill my dream of writing for a living? Who cares?!? I just wanted to sleep!
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Suddenly, years had gone by, and I realized that I had stopped. Stopped thinking about words, stopped dreaming about being published, stopped writing, stopped even feeling like a writer.
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And I have to admit, I was relieved.
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I was relieved that I no longer had this fire inside of me...this burning need to get my thoughts out there, to be heard, to be read, to express myself. It was simpler this way...I didn't feel like I had given up on a dream. I didn't need to carve time out of an already busy day to write in my journal or look up a magazine's submission guidelines. I didn't even miss it.
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And then, the kids started sleeping through the night (most nights, anyway), and I started getting restless again. Restless for the magic of the perfect word, the perfect phrase...restless for that voice of mine (it's pretty damn loud on a daily basis, so you can only imagine what it's like when attempting to silence it inside my own head).
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And just like that, the need was back. I almost cringed. "Oh no. There it is again. That dream. That need to write."
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Damn.
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How was I going to write again, though? Where was I going to even begin? I hadn't scribbled a sentence on a napkin in years, much less sat down to write out a complete idea, musing, poem, story. And how could I go back to writing about love and emotions and angst and all that wispy stuff when I was faced everyday with the constant struggle to figure out how I was going to continue to be Me while being Mama?
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So it hit me. I know. It should've been obvious, but when you're caught up right there in the middle of it, you don't always see it.
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I would write about just that: the boys, parenting, motherhood, the bad days, the good days, my struggle to continue existing within it all.
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I thought a blog would be a great place to start...there were no rules, no guidelines, no editors. Just me. My voice. My thoughts. I didn't even think anyone other than my husband would read most of it. I just needed to get back on it again: thinking about words, about writing, about feeling like that little girl sitting at her big sister's typewriter again.
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So now here I am, a year later. Through this blog, I have made connections, friends, and realizations. I have remembered who I was for most of my life, and felt again the feeling I would get when i finished a piece...whether it was a chapter, a poem, or a journal entry. When I finish a post, I feel like I've made something. There is something out there, in the world, that I wrote, that I created, that is solely and thoroughly Me.
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So I want to thank you...those of you who have come along with me on this journey thus far.
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Thank you, Hubby/Chris, for reading every post, every word, every comment. Thank you for loading the dishwasher (even when it was my turn) on the days I just needed to get something written. Thank you for caring enough to learn who these people are out there in my blogging world who have become like friends. Thank you for checking my blog (I've caught you doing it sometimes more than once a day) just to see if I have a new follower or a new comment. Thank you for being proud of my "talent," as you call it, and for never caring what I put out there, for the world to see. And that drunken post we did together? Yeah, thanks for that, too.
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Thank you to the personal friends who come here to read my words, who then make it a point to tell me something about it in person, who have supported this from day one. You know who you are. You have no idea how much it means to me.
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Thank you to my blogging buddies (Blog Roll Ladies? This means you!)...the ones who inspire me with their honesty, their images, and occasionally, their appropriately used curse words. Thanks for the comments, the emails, and even the wake-up-call text messages. I truly wish we could all meet on the playground, find a sitter, and go out for drinks.