I’ve been doing a lot of thinking about my life. I didn’t plan to do it, at least not until it kept happening enough that I figured it might be worth paying attention. It hasn’t been so much a sit-down-and-get-it-done think as it has been a series of thinks that just pop up every day, those short moments where you get this completely clear understanding of, well, everything, and then it’s gone. But you know it was there, so you keep thinking about it. And you keep putting “sit down and think about this until you have a plan” on your to-do list every single day, but every single day it gets carried over to the next day… you only make time for the things you truly want to make time for, and this one seems a little too intimidating to make time for it. Projects I can’t be sure of completing perfectly have a hard time even getting off the ground around here. I should change that. I’m a shame on the world of perfectionists; I’m such an extremist that I can’t even bother to try…

I started blogging four years ago. Part of me wants to stop. Everybody else is just starting, and I’m done, which is silly. Part of me knows that stopping would be bad for me. I can’t handle letting a good idea go to waste, and sometimes those good ideas are not tangible things needing to be created but just words that need to be put out there. Without a blog, where would I put them? Not a journal; the two are completely different (and I really think the illusion that one can replace the other can cause a lot of regret down the road. Journals, blogs, and scrapbooks are all very different entities.) I need a blog. But the thing with blogging is that you have to have something really good to say, and you have to have the time to say it [at least almost] every day. Blogging is a very timely sport. Heaven knows I’ve got a lot in mind to say, but whether or not it’s the best use of my time to try to say it on time is another story. Shouldn’t I be living, instead of spending time writing about living? Too often my half-baked effort at devoting time to blogging turns posts into a bunch of nothingness that shouldn’t even have been published in the first place. Maybe I should stop making myself feel the responsibility to record things, because while they wait for the time to be done justice they are quickly stacking up in my mind and driving me over the edge. But writing about living is almost what makes living wonderful, because you can go back and live it again. Or in my case, actually experience it in full because you missed understanding it the first time.

While I recognize the impact of and have most certainly been a frequent part of the family blogging movement, and while I am glad for the place that it has in the blogosphere (helping people to keep in touch within their own social circles), I’ve always been a believer that the real purpose of the blog is to be a venue for material that is universally applicable. Not a “this is what I did today” log but something people can relate to and be inspired by, something that sparks blog posts of their own and is food for thought. That’s the kind of blog that I want. Those are the kind of posts flying around in my head, waiting for a spot to land. I want a 100% blog or no blog. This is not it. If I choose the 100% route, I’m starting anew.

But I’m still choosing. I’ve had these vague feelings of rebellion against the blogging world lately. Why? Why do I spend time with page after page of people I don’t even know and this web of materialism? So many blogs that I used to enjoy for their heart and soul have become nothing but perpetual wish lists. They connected me to Etsy - which I’m now also having a love-hate relationship with - and they gave me lots of good inspiration that I liked. But now I feel like I’m in these networks enough to see right through them, and I don’t like how they all just try to be each other. I’m kind of disenchanted with it all.

I think that I could walk away from all of that right now, and be leaving with all that I needed anyway: the opportunity to learn some things about myself and to do something about them; a jump-start. I’ve got that, and call it turning your back on the one that got you there, but now I want to be my own.

Which brings me back to my starting point, of how I’ve been thinking. About what I really want to be. Quarter-life crisis? I have this unreasonably strong need to not settle, unreasonable to the extent that it is keeping me from being anything at all. My mind is so ambitious but I just sit here. I feel like the lists of things to think and learn and write and say and do and be are literally eating me up on the inside, and Trevor thinks that is just me being dramatic but, since it’s been a pretty steady feeling for a few months, I beg to differ. I don’t want to start (start what? I don’t know. life?) unless it’s awesome, and by awesome I mean narrowed, defined and integrated into everything about who I am so that I can actually achieve it. I don’t feel like I’ve ever done that. There was only one time in my life where I was 100% deeply absorbed by a pursuit, and it wasn’t a good thing and I have never since been able to harness that type of motivation again. But I need to, but it needs to be in moderation. Sometimes you just can’t be awesome at everything. Choices, planning, focus are in order. I have to learn to focus. When I packed up and left for college, my ability to focus moved out too but to a separate destination; I need to go find it and bring it back. I need to decide what I’m going to do and then do it 100%. I’m not sure if blogging is a part of that. I’m thinking I’d rather live well than try to blog well about living mediocre. Cause then I have a mediocre life AND a mediocre blog. But maybe I can do both. I don’t know. I certainly might be even worse off without a blog.

So what do I want to be? I’ve been keeping a mental list. I need to write it all down; I’ve tried but haven’t finished, and I think it will be pages of paragraphs long. But I need to know what I’m going to work for. One thing I’ve come to realize (with some help from the hubby) is that I love change, I thrive on it. I had no idea, I never would have guessed, but it’s true. Who would have thought? I crave change. I feel like I can make decisions better now that I know. Husbands have this way of discovering yourself for you, and then you feel all liberated and ready to rock and roll.

Anyway, I’m still deciding. I’m sorry that I always change my plans and change my blog. But it’s kind of exciting, don’t you think? Maybe I should change my hair too.