7 years

Perhaps the best time to do a love list is when you've hit a low point and are possibly feeling downright unlovable yourself. It's a kind of reassurance -- the longer the list, the more proof that good things abound and the scales will tip again towards a positive outlook.
Today is one of those harder times, it requires digging a little deeper than rhapsodizing about my favorite handbag or clean hardwood floors. I'm looking for things that make me glad and grateful to be me and not someone else. So instead of the usual list of links to fun videos and pretty pictures, here is one thing I love, really truly.

This blog. Currently "En route" formerly "Greenly Leaping" and before that, "Slumberland". Gosh I've had this thing a long time. 7 years and 13 days, to be precise. It may look a bit like a design-blog now, what with the many pretty photos and not so much writing, but at heart it is a personal journal.

It came to be out of a kind of loneliness during those first bewildered months after graduating college when I didn't know where I was going next. It followed me to Japan and my first job (a total nightmare at the time that is funny in hindsight), and then we parted ways for two years where I was having too much fun to have time to write about it. And when I found myself on my own again it seemed like the only way to reassemble myself was through writing. Publicly. (A lot of those posts got deleted)

And here it is now in its current incarnation. It's kind of like my bedroom, literally (the greens in my header match my walls). But also in the sense that I want it to be a bright, cozy space where anyone is welcome to come in and look through my photo albums and listen to my iPod and watch movies with me and talk about boys and life and fashion. And maybe on a day like today it's nice if you just sit with me and listen to me ramble on.

Most of you reading are my friends from "real life" but I've noticed a fair number of returning visitors from regions I've never been, and to you I say hi! and thank you. It's comforting to know you are out there.

It was easier to write about my life 7 years ago, when it was just me and the internet ether; the concept of "blog" hadn't yet made it to mainstream. But my favorite blogs are those written with personality and honesty, and I hope it's possible for me to juxtapose the lighthearted pretty posts with some moments from real life.

Which isn't to say real life is all about the dark side of things -- no no, not at all. It's just not as straightforward and easily ingested as my new favorite look for spring.

There has been so much from the past couple years that I haven't written about or even spoken to anyone about, because it's not the sort of thing one ought to say in polite company. No, I don't mean anything dirty, I just mean the matters of the heart that aren't all sweetness and light like a Peynet drawing.

I don't write about the heartbreaks because they're not pretty, I don't talk about my spirituality for fear of being thought weird, and I am wondering why, if I am writing in such a public arena, am I so reluctant to actually be seen.

All this to say that my life has felt like a roller coaster of late, with moments of dizzying exhilaration and moments where everything seems to fall away, and I think I may need to use this forum to try to make sense of it all.
It would be nice to have some company along the way.