I think I'm prone to falling into one of two mindsets: either diving headfirst into something, and falling prey to ideas so big that I could never execute them or follow through, or having no ideas at all and simply washing my hands of things. This blog is an embarrassingly perfect example of both of these mindsets at work.
When I was in Russia, living and breathing all things Russian, this blog had a life of its own: I was commenting on my experience of daily life as an American, chronicling the people I met, the famous places I saw, the culture, the food. And then, just as quickly, it was all over. I was back home in the United States, back to my comfort zone. The blog had served its purpose, I thought. There's nothing worth chronicling here.
It's funny how a little time and distance can change your perspective. Not only did I find new things about my home country that I had never experienced, but I also realized that I fundamentally missed blogging; I would reference it sometimes, and then quickly stop, knowing that all the experiences chronicled within these pages were long gone, never to return. As anyone who knows me in real life can attest, I'm an extremely talkative person; yet talking aimlessly to the internet, without a guiding reason to blog (Look at Russian things! See Russian pictures!) seemed really frightening to me. I always took a person just writing about their life as someone who was a bit self-obsessed, who thought that the world revolved around them and their experiences, who felt that their opinion was so radically different that the world needed to know their thoughts on everything. But I missed writing this way, and so I desperately searched for a new topic, so that my writing was at least a little bit justified.
For a little while, I toyed with the idea of changing the format of the blog: of turning it into a "travel to California" type blog, where I would take pictures of things and find hidden gems in California. As should be obvious, this idea quickly fell apart. The problem with exploring where you live is just that: you live there. In Russia, I had gone specifically to explore, to see as much as I could see within the time allotted to me. Back home, I can't just take days to wander museums, or walk into churches with the expectation of taking pictures of their architecture. I have a life to live, and things I'm required to do. So, the blog fell to the wayside, and I figured I could be content knowing that my writing had served its purpose.
Life has a funny way of making people change their preconceived notions, though. After going through a whole array of life-changing incidents-- notably, a car accident and the death of all of my remaining grandparents-- I started realizing that, maybe I don't need a point. Maybe writing is enough.
When I was younger, my grandmother had started taking classes on writing memoirs at a local community college. She was very passionate about it, writing story after story about her childhood in the South. My grandparents were the quintessential Southern story: my grandfather was not only the quarterback at his college, but was an all-American athlete, and my grandmother was a Southern belle. While many of my grandmother's stories involved subjects that I personally found tedious-- such as the first time she was allowed to curl her hair using hair curlers-- they inspired her, and resulted in her furiously writing short vignettes from her life. One day, while I was still at school in Oklahoma, we were talking on the phone, and she said, "You should start writing your memoirs now, while you still remember them!" I immediately scoffed. Write memoirs when I was still just getting started on my life? I didn't have anything worth remembering!
I had always been the kind of girl who despised diaries. Most diaries that I attempted to keep were quickly discarded, mostly due to the fact that they were filled with phrases such as:
I am writing in you right now because I know that I'm supposed to write in you every day. I don't really have anything to say, but I had to put something down in your pages, so there.
Truly, my inspiration flowed deep.
But all that changes when people who you thought would be in your life until you were an adult-- long after you were married, and had a family, and had become successful-- are gone before you've even gotten into grad school. As much as I scoffed at my grandmother's assertion that I should write while I still remember, I realize now that it's through my words that I can best help remember her... and maybe help my kids someday remember her better, too. It's the little things in life, the things that are most easily forgotten, that are the most worth remembering.
And so, all of this rambling is to say, that I am happy to announce that I'll be starting this blog again. I don't know who, other than me, will read this; and for the first time ever, I am surprisingly okay with that. I have no idea what direction this blog will take-- I have some vague inclinations about book reviews, website recommendations, and other equally random things-- but I have no hard plans as to what I'm planning on doing, and I think that's fine. In the meantime, I'm planning on remembering as much as I can. And for me, that's a welcome change of pace.
When I was in Russia, living and breathing all things Russian, this blog had a life of its own: I was commenting on my experience of daily life as an American, chronicling the people I met, the famous places I saw, the culture, the food. And then, just as quickly, it was all over. I was back home in the United States, back to my comfort zone. The blog had served its purpose, I thought. There's nothing worth chronicling here.
It's funny how a little time and distance can change your perspective. Not only did I find new things about my home country that I had never experienced, but I also realized that I fundamentally missed blogging; I would reference it sometimes, and then quickly stop, knowing that all the experiences chronicled within these pages were long gone, never to return. As anyone who knows me in real life can attest, I'm an extremely talkative person; yet talking aimlessly to the internet, without a guiding reason to blog (Look at Russian things! See Russian pictures!) seemed really frightening to me. I always took a person just writing about their life as someone who was a bit self-obsessed, who thought that the world revolved around them and their experiences, who felt that their opinion was so radically different that the world needed to know their thoughts on everything. But I missed writing this way, and so I desperately searched for a new topic, so that my writing was at least a little bit justified.
For a little while, I toyed with the idea of changing the format of the blog: of turning it into a "travel to California" type blog, where I would take pictures of things and find hidden gems in California. As should be obvious, this idea quickly fell apart. The problem with exploring where you live is just that: you live there. In Russia, I had gone specifically to explore, to see as much as I could see within the time allotted to me. Back home, I can't just take days to wander museums, or walk into churches with the expectation of taking pictures of their architecture. I have a life to live, and things I'm required to do. So, the blog fell to the wayside, and I figured I could be content knowing that my writing had served its purpose.
Life has a funny way of making people change their preconceived notions, though. After going through a whole array of life-changing incidents-- notably, a car accident and the death of all of my remaining grandparents-- I started realizing that, maybe I don't need a point. Maybe writing is enough.
When I was younger, my grandmother had started taking classes on writing memoirs at a local community college. She was very passionate about it, writing story after story about her childhood in the South. My grandparents were the quintessential Southern story: my grandfather was not only the quarterback at his college, but was an all-American athlete, and my grandmother was a Southern belle. While many of my grandmother's stories involved subjects that I personally found tedious-- such as the first time she was allowed to curl her hair using hair curlers-- they inspired her, and resulted in her furiously writing short vignettes from her life. One day, while I was still at school in Oklahoma, we were talking on the phone, and she said, "You should start writing your memoirs now, while you still remember them!" I immediately scoffed. Write memoirs when I was still just getting started on my life? I didn't have anything worth remembering!
I had always been the kind of girl who despised diaries. Most diaries that I attempted to keep were quickly discarded, mostly due to the fact that they were filled with phrases such as:
Dear Diary,
I am writing in you right now because I know that I'm supposed to write in you every day. I don't really have anything to say, but I had to put something down in your pages, so there.
Truly, my inspiration flowed deep.
But all that changes when people who you thought would be in your life until you were an adult-- long after you were married, and had a family, and had become successful-- are gone before you've even gotten into grad school. As much as I scoffed at my grandmother's assertion that I should write while I still remember, I realize now that it's through my words that I can best help remember her... and maybe help my kids someday remember her better, too. It's the little things in life, the things that are most easily forgotten, that are the most worth remembering.
And so, all of this rambling is to say, that I am happy to announce that I'll be starting this blog again. I don't know who, other than me, will read this; and for the first time ever, I am surprisingly okay with that. I have no idea what direction this blog will take-- I have some vague inclinations about book reviews, website recommendations, and other equally random things-- but I have no hard plans as to what I'm planning on doing, and I think that's fine. In the meantime, I'm planning on remembering as much as I can. And for me, that's a welcome change of pace.
