...one year.

Happy Blogiversary to me, happy blogiversary to me, happy blogiversary dear I Spy With My Little Eye, happy blogiversary to meeeeee.

One year ago today I made a bit of a deal with myself.  I was going to attempt to write as often as I could or at least as often as the notion struck me.  Everyday, once a week, regularly, sporatically... I didn't know how it would unfold but I would write and I started with this. I surprised myself.  I wrote some stuff that felt genuine and creative.  I was excited to share it and increasingly delighted by the legacy I was creating for my children.  For them to one day read and witness me unfolding as a mother to them.  Today I gave myself a Blogiversary present.  I read my blog.  The whole years worth.  I cried a little, remembered nuances of the last year that I had forgotten, was honoured again as I read the comments that you have left for me... and most surprisingly I didn't cringe...not even a little.  I was actually hanging on every word.  Hungry for more.  Captivated by the honesty of the prose.  Huh?  Who knew?  I was even intrigued and surprised at how the body of work as a whole revealed the transformation of my life over the last year.   How wildly feminine and introspective my "gestational" posts were and how unaplogetically selfish they seemed over the summer.  How my subject matter and focus meandered from one aspect of my life to the next in the months to follow.

I have many more bits and pieces of writing started, in process or scribbled as ideas here and there.  Most of those will never make their way to this place to be read (and reread by me) but they are what keeps the fire stoked, feeds the hunger to create and ultimately nurtures the growth that I long for and realize through this process. 

To me... Yah me.

...a midnight blogger.

I look forward to a day when I will not be trying to write a new entry for my blog every night and actually achieving my goal every two weeks or so. I have so much I want to write, remember, share... And I have really begun to crave my time at the keyboard. I am always happy when I am creating. I am a knitter, a seamstress, an artist... I love to give handmade gifts. This Christmas it was fairy wings, felted crowns, a knights tunic and scabbard and of course pints and pints of lovely red jam. But I have now discovered that writing falls into this category too. I love to weave a tapestry with words. It fills me up in ways I had no idea it would. For about 10 months I have been writing when I can and wondering if my musings make sense to anyone but me. I have been doubtful that my grammar would pass muster in an English class and am pretty sure that my misuse of vocabulary would make the average linguist cringe. Not to mention my liberal use of non traditional punctuation... and sentence fragments? I decided right from the start that I would write how I am thinking or at least how I would speak so I have stuck to it and it fits.

I struggle with the legitimacy of all of this. I am not a writer. I am just a soulful thinker trying to put my thoughts into words. And when I can steal the chance I tap them out on this keyboard. Almost always it is at or near the witching hour because that is when my house is sleeping, my work is as done as it's going to be for the night and I can briefly turn my attention inward to see what is bubbling up and trying to get out. Often the tap, tap, tapping at my keyboard wakes the babe sleeping next to me and I stop for a nurse. Sometimes the break gives me a chance to let my mind shuffle the chaos into something readable. It isn't glamorous, my nightshirt often wet with breast milk and my snack of chocolate buttons and a glass of water is hardly romantic. Maybe that is what keeps it real.

And although I crave to write more and more often I am pretty happy with my midnight blogging. The things keeping me from being here more often are precious to me too.

And I have decided to let myself be a writer. I'm tired of feeling like a fake so I've decided that I'm not.