Writing... and some other stuff too.

I love my blog. Writing my blog makes me feel so happy, completely unreasonably happy seeing as all I'm doing is combining a jumble of words and letters into something that (hopefully) makes sense and sending it out into the internet where it gets lost among the thousands of millions of billions of other blogs, images and videos, songs, pixels and data, people, opinions and voices that are all shouting to be heard and seen and understood. Despite this and the shocking level of insignificance that the vastness of the internet reduces everybody to, I still love it.


I don't know why I find it easy to write what I really think or how I feel about something and post it for people I've never met or spoken to, people that don't know I exist, or live on the other side of the world to read and judge. All I can say is that I've never been one of those lucky people who can magically say the right thing in any situation and apparently make friends with anyone and everyone they meet. I'm not like that - if I'm nervous I will not be able to stop talking and probably say something completely stupid, if I feel awkward you will see it on my face, and worst of all, if I really don't want to talk to someone they can usually tell, which results in some pretty embarrassing moments. Its not like this with writing. With writing - whether I have a pen, a laptop, or the reassuringly bright screen of my phone - I can take time to think about what I'm trying to say, read it back to myself, and crucially have that moment of control before hitting send, or post, or handing in an essay. That moment of knowing that I haven't written something stupid, something that I will regret, makes all the difference. The difference between not putting your hand up to say something or nodding along, not quite sure whether to speak what's on your mind.

And strangely, the release of writing, and being myself has made me a lot more confident and outspoken in my daily life as well. Maybe its the result of receiving comments from people - the same people who would be strangers to me except for the fact that they read my blog - about my writing. Their support and praise has made me keep doing this, even when I want to quit, even when I read back some of the things I wrote a year ago and cringe at the way I said something or the way I come across, even when I wonder what the point is and if anyone would even notice if I just deleted this blog and gave up. Maybe writing has made me more honest. I know I didn't like it at first when people I knew started reading what I wrote, but now I've realised that if someone takes the time to tell me they like something I said or comment on a post, then they genuinely mean it. It may sound stupid, but it really helped me to stop doubting everything I wanted to say - to disagree if that's how I feel, to argue, to type a tweet without rewording it four times, worrying if it sounds stupid, or boring. Worrying if I sound stupid, or boring.

I'm not claiming that I'm never either of these things, by any means, because we all are sometimes and we all say things we may regret the next day, when we've sobered up from the party or calmed down from the screaming fight. Everybody writes things they will cringe to read in five months or two years time - diaries, Facebook statuses, birthday cards to people we will lose touch with while claiming to be BFFs and essays written at 2 am, misspelt and rambling, when maybe we haven't actually finished the book yet. But none of these things matter - who cares if you feel stupid later: say it now. The important thing isn't to care about how you sound to people around you, but just to have the confidence to say it in the first place; to jump in with both feet; to do whatever it is that scares you.

I'd rather have a life of OH SHIT than a life of WHAT IF.... what if I said that thing that needed saying, what if I tried, what if I attempted that thing, whatever it is, that scares me?? Personally, I would prefer to make an idiot of myself now, than regret and wonder why I didn't take those risks in the first place.

So do it.

Ask yourself: what's the worst that could happen? And if the answer isn't: I might die, then its probably a good idea. (Although don't hold me responsible for anything....) xxx