RUSTY WRTING

 

I started blogging because I enjoy writing. I started writing because I had to vent. Somewhere along the way I started enjoying the process of writing without a set goal. The idea of just letting a meandering thought form into a blog post came naturally. This little hobby got me to express myself. Then I graduated college, started working, had too many fleeting thoughts that I couldn’t even filter to pick one aside and write about it. On days when clarity allowed, I was able to write even though it wasn’t often. Then in the zeal to get a friend to pull herself out of a rut I talked myself into blogging with her. It began the way any good thing does. Things were going smoothly. We were churning out posts and we were building a readership. We started putting up our blog updates as statuses, we’d send our friends the link to our latest post, we were relentless in our pursuit to expand our readership. Like any pursuit to succeed a plan and strategy needs to be set in place to achieve our goals. These plans led to a timetable of what we’d post, at what time we’d post and how we divide our work on social media handles.

Now I am a hermit who likes to write for herself, I haven’t been sharing my blog link since I began writing here. I attract wanderers who might want to linger and some who might want to stay. These readers have all been strangers. I had not faced judgment because they only knew me to the extent of what I wrote and not beyond. I enjoyed this private space and the anonymity. My objective was only to write what I felt and not what I thought the reader wanted to read. I don’t feed on people’s choices and I don’t let people decide what I write about. Then I would have to start thinking the way other people do and become a person I am not. Become that person I did.

The blog was no longer just a place for two friends to meet and write. It became about; it has to be this “topic” for this day. Social media handles have to be updated by a certain time. Hashtags had to be researched and discussed. Photographs had to be a certain way. It was supposed to be simple. The writing was supposed to speak for itself. I felt I had contributed to the existence of what we called, “Bob and Lulu” and it didn’t seem right to make a fuss about the fuss. Then the pandemic happened and we all got cooking. Cooking became our main focus. I don’t think I am cut out for food blogs. The blog that was supposed to be about “Everything” was becoming more of a food blog and my interest was now no longer waning but it was all but gone. That’s when the idea of videos came to be. We were to collaborate with another person. We started churning out videos. They were turning out well. Being the hermit, I wanted to stay behind the screen than on it. Soon we were at a place where sharing credit became an issue. It was always about how one person is doing more work than the other. I guess I was done with the blog even before I admitted it out loud. We got there. I quit the blog. She quit the friendship. Like most things I write about, this just became another thing for me to write about.