Starting Fresh (Sort Of)
It's daunting to begin again.
This is my first blog post on my brand new blog on my brand new website, but it's far from my first blog post EVER.
In 2006 I started my first blog, One Writeous Chick. My first post is HERE on WordPress; I go back and read it sometimes on my blogiversary, which is July 1st. I actually began my blogging journey on Blogger and then migrated it over to WordPress after a year, in June 2007. The archive of my first month blogging on Blogger is HERE. It's VERY PINK.
In April 2010 I started my yoga blog, NotSoZen YogaJen. My first post there is HERE.
For the past close to three years I've been working at a day job. During my first year and a half there I wrote a few pieces that were published online, like this one about being brutally honest in my online dating profile on The Frisky and this one about not being sure if I lost my virginity on The Huffington Post.
For the past year and a half though I put writing for websites aside so I could focus on writing my book.
And then in September I turned 40 and quit my day job. Because I was working full-time and writing my book on weekends and teaching writing workshops on the side and longing to write essays and articles again, but just didn't have enough time or energy. And I didn't want to put off what I'm meant to be doing and who I'm meant to be in the world any longer. I didn't want to ache and long to be spending my days and my life in this OTHER WAY that just wasn't happening. I wanted to just DO IT.
So here I am, newly back to the freelancing life after almost three years in an office. And it's an adjustment. To get back to myself. To re-find and reconnect with my voice and discover who I am now and what I want and need to say today.
I made this brand new website this week, which is a whole nother story. A short story, about how I almost gave up but then, at a key moment, encountered my graphic designer neighbor who gave me a Squarespace pep talk which prompted me to overcome inner obstacles and also outer, technical challenges, and Voilà!
As I was creating my new website, I was debating if I wanted to blog here or keep up with my One Writeous Chick and NotSoZen YogaJen blogs instead. I was leaning towards keeping up with my old blogs but when this website was coming together and I turned a corner and became excited about it and started to love it, I decided that I wanted to start fresh with a new blog here, in this pretty, shiny new place.
Between working full-time and writing a book and a few articles here and there, I haven't updated my blogs of yesteryear in a long-ass time. Because, you know, priorities. I still feel a nostalgic connection to them, but for now, especially in the interest of keeping everything in one place, I'm going to focus on blogging here. Unless my separation anxiety from them becomes too damn profound. I also feel a tug of sadness at contributing to graveyard of abandoned blogs but really, at this point, who hasn't abandoned a blog or two?
When I read my past first posts, I'm struck by how much I've changed -- how different my writing or voice or style or what I was writing about was. How different I was. I catch a glimpse of everything I've been through and experienced since I was sitting alone in my apartment on July 1st, 2006 shortly after midnight, hyped up from guzzling a 20-ounce bottle of Diet Coke as I clicked that bright orange PUBLISH button on Blogger for the very first time. I was 30-years-old and still new to Brooklyn, having only lived in my Park Slope apartment for less than a year at that time.
Or what's changed since I wrote my first yoga blog post in April 2010. Notably, that I got an injury -- a labral tear in my hip -- three years ago, and wasn't able to practice yoga at all for about a year. Now I'm back to it, though in a different, quieter, less aggressive way.
But reading those old posts, I can also recognize at their core the part of me that is still the same and still -- regardless of style or voice or topic changes -- me. I can see the kernel of my voice and what's important to me and what I'm passionate about and why I'm compelled to write and express and share these things.
Anyway, welcome. Thanks for stopping by. I hope you'll visit often. I'm excited to be back. And to be starting fresh. Sort of.
