Well, here we go. My first blog post.
I figured it was time to start a blog. I love learning and I've always loved sharing what I'm learning with the people in my life. As I've gotten older, the contents of those conversations have shifted from things like what I learned in chemistry class that day to things like the role irrational emotions play in the life of a rational person. No matter the content, it's important to give yourself a voice.
That's a tip I learned in counseling. Your voice matters. Your presence matters. Your thoughts matter. You are important and valuable. The things that you think and learn and go through make a difference in the world and have the power to encourage and help others. A simple concept, right? But sometimes it's the simplest things that we have to be reminded of the most. It's tough out there. Life is hard. A lot of times we get all twisted up and upside down which is exactly where I found myself sitting on the couch of my counselor's office, rambling and trying to answer her first question to me: "so how was your week?"
After about 15 rabbit trails off of my main point and 25 "I don't know" filler phrases, she said, "have you ever thought about journaling?" Of course, I brushed off the idea. I'm not much of a writer. And I am very much of a perfectionist so anything I could even consider worthy of writing down would never be good enough. But she suggested that I just make a folder in the notes app on my phone or laptop and just start typing. No editing. No criticizing. No rules.
So I did it. And about five months later, the notes on my phone have lead to that little notification we all love: "Not enough storage." And that pretty much brings us here. This isn't exactly a replacement for those notes. Hopefully it'll be a little more edited and have a lot less rambling. And it'll also be a lot more public than the locked folder on my phone. Yikes. I think we're all humble enough to admit we aren't immune to the effects of judgement and criticism, especially from ourselves. But the fear of judgement has kept me from too many things in the past 21 years.
One of my goals is to share and encourage. If you follow me on Instagram, then you know I'm a big fan of the long-captioned post or the series of stories. I'd love to believe that all of my followers read them but I'm not that naive. In reality, it's probably more like my parents and maybe 5 other people who are bored scrolling on their phones. So I figured this is maybe a more appropriate place to share those thoughts without being the annoying long-caption girl.
This is my blog. These are my thoughts. I'm learning. I'm growing. And I want you to be a part of that.
Thanks for taking the time to read with me. I'm looking forward to doing it more often.
-Annie