200

This is my 200th post. 200! I wrote this post over a week ago, but decided to save it for 200.

I'm thinking about blogging today. It's so weird isn't it?

I started blogging as a way to post pics of my knitting for my family. There's only so much gushing that Hubby can do. He's super supportive, but I just can't expect him to wig out and dance every time I turn a heel. And lets be honest. Sometimes a mastered knitting skill requires a big ol' "w00t!" I needed a place to show my parents and friends my woolly stuffs, because you know, nobody's gonna gush better than your my mom.

There are many cool byproducts of having a blog (new friends, new projects, inspiration, etc.), but the thing that has me thinking today is the writing and maintaining relationships through blogging. I've never boasted of being a writer. It's a rather draining and self-conscious process for me. I can never do my thoughts and feelings justice in words. Doesn't work. Never happens as it should. But there's something about writing without having a sense of the intended reader. It's not personal. I'm just sending some random bits out into the internet soup for whomever cares to look.

Before blogging, to keep in touch with my friends I would email (or I would try). An email goes to one person, unless you're doing that dreaded mass email thing (Thank God we stopped doing that). You tailor your words to the recipient. Friend A hears about X part of your life. You make judgments about who hears what depending on previous experiences. When you have a blog, everybody hears everything you wish to publish. All your friends get to read about the big stuff in your life, but they also get some of the minutia. We blog about the mundane in our life because sometimes it's too scary/dangerous to put what's really happening out there. But relationships are built and maintained with the mundane.

When I was in the relationship building business, it was drilled into my scull that relationships are based on 1. shared interests and 2. shared experiences. If you were lacking in shared interests, you created an experience to share. So, when I graduated from college and all my friends scattered in the wind, it was pretty damn hard for us to share experiences without involving a plane ticket and $$$. We talked once or twice a year. We caught up on each others' lives with the "got marrieds" and "moveds" of our lives. The big stuff. But that kind of stuff isn't really the interesting part of being human. It's the smaller things that matter most. Something about love/life is in the details...

I never would have guessed that writing about wool and greyhounds and in general being my silly self would ever have helped me to meet new people and strengthen old friendships. I never thought that my affection for others would grow so much by hearing of others' hobbies and reading their thoughts put into words. I never thought I'd get joy from being a fly on the wall of my friends' lives. I never thought that publishing the impersonal bits of my life be bring such personal rewards.

Blogging is indeed so weird.