Saying Hello Part 2

Because I forgot half the assignment the first time

I forgot to include the part where I look to the future of my blog, so here’s that part.

Why am I blogging publicly instead of keeping a diary?

The easy answer to that question is that I don’t give a darn who might happen to read my “innermost” thoughts here. Anyone who writes a blog is really writing for anybody other than themselves. Come to think of it, isn’t blogging the antithesis of the traditional purpose of a personal diary? 

There’s also a chance I may attempt to publish parts of my “personal story” in some other format. This will include the posts tagged Places of My Life from my first published blog plus some edited and condensed versions of vignettes I drafted in my memoir classes.

What topics will I write about?

I will continue to write my personal life stories.  I hope to split them into two or three or more sections or pages based on what I see as the distinctive phases of my life so far. 

At my current age of 65, I can see a defining line at the denouement of my youthful experiences with my graduation from college. 

Young adulthood will encompass exploration of the big wide wonderful and scary real world when I went out and lived my own life and, to quote a movie that was popular at the time, Urban Cowboy, “all that that entails.”

I’d say I had to become a responsible adult when I found myself “knocked up” at the then very geriatric (for that sort of thing) age of nearly thirty-five.  This is probably the longest uninterrupted and least interesting or enlightening part of my life’s journey.  It might also be the most rewarding from my current perspective since it yielded at its conclusion my two daughters.

Who do I want my blog to connect with?

This is the modern social media version of the perennial authors’ question: Who is my intended audience? I want this blog, and maybe my possible book, to appeal to non-traditional non-stereotypical women of all ages.  I describe these ladies as superwomen who are able to at least handle if not master the dual practices of having a career (or at least a job) and having a family (or at least a personal life), usually at the same time. 

Coincidentally (or maybe not so much since we are at the beginning of a new year), I just finished, this week, a free online 7-Day Book Writing Challenge.  That course, and this exercise, both reference a manifesto:  a statement of what one believes, written to help others or oneself. 

Wikipedia expands the description of a manifesto by adding that it usually accepts a previously published opinion or promotes a new idea with prescriptive notions for carrying out changes the author believes should be made. It almost feels like this definition was written with my skillset in mind.  I don’t have many totally original ideas but believe strongly in expounding on and supplementing the ideas of experiences of others with my own thoughts, opinions and IRL events.

What do I hope to accomplish if I successfully blog throughout the next year?

I want a bunch of people to really like me!  But really, I want to like myself as the woman I am now.  Outside of my blog, which will be a look back at things that happened and therefore cannot be changed, I hope to confirm to myself and other women that we do not need men to define us, for good or ill. 

I will share episodes – real things that happened to me, as I remember them with as much specificity as I can muster on my thoughts and emotions at the time.  The time and place and context in which they happened are pivotal, IMO, to understanding my behaviors and reactions then which may or may not be realistic or relatable to the working woman of today.

In return I hope to receive feedback from especially Western women who may have had similar experiences, in the same time period or not, or may have learned from themselves or myself or others, how to thrive as their own authentic selves wherever they may be and at whatever point – past, present, or future – they occupy in the arc of modern life in the 21^st century. 

Are we in general and as individuals moving forward or backwards? Or is the net result of movements in both directions just a wash for today’s women, as it may be for me right now?

How many times can I or will I have to or be able to start over to get there, the place I think I want to be now or very soon as I draw closer to the end of my life?  Will this continue to be an open-ended and uncomfortable pursuit, like Scarlett O’Hara’s dream on an overfull angry stomach. Will I ever get there?  Did she?

There may never be a definitive answer but I hope to continue the search, exchanging ideas, thoughts, opinions, memories and wishes along the way.