#RealTalk

As I was sitting at my table in the Jackson library this lazy Friday afternoon surrounded by forgotten books and papers, daydreaming about warm kitchens and crafty projects, and feeling super hipster in my thrift store altered skirt and homemade legwarmers, I suddenly remembered that I created a blog once. A procrastination break is always a good thing, so I reminisced about my once-ambitious intentions of spreading clever ideas and useful tips to anyone who might be interested (and who wouldn’t be interested in what I have to say). 

Well, we can see how long those ambitious intentions lasted. After a few attempts at this blogging thing, I quickly realized two things. The first is that blogging is actually a lot of work. I had this beautiful vision in my head that I could effortlessly be a witty, interesting person departing my wisdom to the masses through my well-written – wait, what? Blogging requires me to write? Well, that’s a problem because I hate writing. Three full years of college plus some change has taught me that a quality paper does not simply spring from my brain through my fingers to settle gracefully onto the beautiful white electronic page on my computer screen. My papers are born. If you have ever witnessed a live birth, you need no further explanation. To those of you who had never had the privilege, let me elaborate. Birthing is an extremely painful and laborious process that involves blood, sweat, guts, and tears, the occasional scream, and plenty of pitiful whimpers and pleas for it all to end. 

The second thing I realized is that, contrary to my egotistical belief that people were just waiting en masse to linger on every word that I might say, not a lot of people were interested in reading my blog. Granted, it might have helped if I had tried writing more than three posts and advertised it a bit more, but I didn’t think of those things when I was shamelessly wallowing in discouragement and self-pity (hyperbole, guys. Please don’t take that one seriously). I felt like a battle-weary kitten presenting my hard-earned, bloody, dead mouse (seems legit, that’s a pretty accurate description of my writing) to my unappreciative owners. Crushing. Basically, I was spending a lot of time working on something that no one was reading. Ain’t no body got time fo dat! 

After a sufficient period of self-reflection and study, I got over myself and realized that it really doesn’t matter whether or not anyone reads this. Normally, talking to yourself is the first sign that you’re losing it, but since I lost it a long time ago, nobody needs to be bothered. Anyway, I had a conversation with myself that went something like this:

“April, do you enjoy doing this?”

“Yeah.”

“Okay then.”

Yeah, I know, I talk too much. Workin’ on it. Basically, this is something that I slightly enjoy doing. Not more than eating. Or looking through clothes on Pinterest that I will never be able to afford. Or doing dishes. But it is something that is marginally entertaining. So, by golly, I’ll continue to do it! So here we go, blogging round two.

And if you just happen to want to follow along, I suppose that’s okay, too.