On Blogging

With 100 posts behind me and 1.5 million hits (thanks readers!), I decided to devote a post to blogging itself. I started the blog last summer (2007), under the name Sunflowers and Intuitions (I love the beautiful, friendly sunflowers). But writing about ruminations was more difficult than I thought, and I let my online diary drift off into the mighty blogosphere. But in July, after the initial engagement excited was waning and the reality of planning a wedding was setting in, I knew I needed an outlet. And so the blog was reborn under a new name. Having a theme helps the writing process, and there is usually one aspect of the wedding I can talk about at any given moment. Blogging can be scary. You never know if the words you type somehow get miscommunicated to your readers, or, like any other type of writing, if your readers will think your words are too deep, too shallow, too pretentious, too silly. That's the risk of writing...you put yourself out there. But the rewards are there too, when someone comments on a post, or a friend or family member says they really enjoyed a certain theme I discussed. And the personal rewards too--every post I publish feels like a minor achievement. With blogging comes a chance to be creative with words, to vent frustrations, to think about what marriage actually means. Many of my family members and friends have told me that having a blog to read connects them to us and our wedding process, even though they are a plane ride away. When I started blogging, I didn't envision that. I guess when you take a chance, the benefits can often surprise you.