Blogging. Not on my new year resolutions list...

When I facebooked my list of New Year Resolutions this year, learning to blog wasn't one of them.  However, having achieved one of my resolutions so early in the year (to pass some professional exams in the hope of furthering my career) I thought I'd have a bash at something new (and I'm feeling a bit lost in the absence of the need to be studying all the time).

I kept a journal from the age of 14 until well into my 20s.  I'd go back and re-read sections over the years until finally at the age of about 25 I threw them all in the trash (carefully shredding up each page in the process).  I used to use journals for bleating about all the things that I wanted and didn't have; all the things I wanted to be but couldn't quite achieve and generally to moan about my jobs/employers/feckless love interests.  At 25 the previous year's journal was so desperately unhappy and so full of bad decisions and choices in the run up to and aftermath of my Grandmother's death, that I gave up documenting my pathetic meanderings on the premise of actually making a life for myself rather than lamenting it.

Three and a half years, and a few more hurdles of bad judgement and indecision later, and I'm sitting on a dreich Sunday morning battling out my reasoning for starting a blog.  Firstly, yesterday I bought a new journal and secondly, I've started reading blogs of note, and those of my friends, and been enjoying them immensely.  Blogging is not tantamount to keeping a journal.  Blogging is a way to assess how you process the world around you in a way that may be interesting to others.  A way of sharing experiences and thoughts so as to enrich your life, as opposed to critically assessing your own actions and bonkerdom: a process way too easy to fall into when writing for your own eyes only.  I see this then as a way to keep a journal and maintain a sense of zen.

At 28 then, I am the married woman I swore I would never be, a letting agent rather than a critically acclaimed author, a karaoke diva and not a world famous singer, a slightly pudgy non-athletic gym enthusiast and a soon to be joint-home-owner.  I have not attained plan A and won the lottery yet, but I am content.   And bonkers.

Well, I do so worry about people who strive for normality - they're the ones you really have to watch!