I haven't been writing here because I have been writing elsewhere. 

I have, in short, started a project in which I write about one thing I'm grateful for each day. It's sort of a personal challenge. I wanted to discipline myself to write daily, and I wanted to see if I could share what I wrote with people in my life (which has always been an idea that has terrified me), and I wanted to see what would happen if I spent every day searching, deliberately, for the good in things. In everything. 

It started because I was searching for something to do for Lent. Until now, I'd only ever observed Lent halfheartedly, if at all - I'd never understood this part of the year well enough for it to mean a whole lot to me. This year, though, my understanding has changed. I wanted to do something to observe the season, but had no idea what. And, the night before Lent was to begin, the idea for this blog just sort of... fell into my brain. 

I told myself from the outset that I would share it with other people - an experiment, I thought, to see if I could. But it took me a long time to work up the nerve. When I finally did send it to a few friends, the rest of the work happened for me. My friends sent it to other friends, who sent it to their friends, and suddenly there was this little network of people reading my words each day. It's been... nice.

Surprisingly nice. I have always felt like sharing my writing - my thoughts - with other people somehow meant asking a lot of them. I felt like it might impose an expectation of something - consideration, or attention, or praise, or criticism - that they probably didn't want to give. Partly, I never wanted to force a response from others, and partly I was afraid that if I did, I wouldn't be able to handle the response I got. I was afraid nobody would like it. 

But the people who read it have also gone out of their way to tell me so. My cousins and aunts and friends from home send me e-mails about it. I got a card about it in the mail. My housemates discuss it at the dinner table. (That part is still a little hard for me to stomach, but the fact that people not only read, but remember, and relate to, the things I've had to say, that they talk about specifics, is kind of amazing to me.) It isn't politeness, or courtesy - it's genuine interest. 

And, yes, these are all people who know me personally and so they are more inclined to be kind than the general public. But, still. They have been so very kind. 

And maybe it's weird that this is such a surprise to me, but it is. All along I have been so wrapped up in fearing rejection that the opposite really - really - never occurred to me. I have never thought about the ways in which what I say might actually reach other people, even in small ways. I've been too shy to let myself understand how very cool that could be. How cool it is. 

I've always enjoyed - more than enjoyed - the writing itself. That I also enjoy the fact that it's being read is a very new thing, indeed. 

Having said that. You are welcome to read it too, if you would like. 
 

h.