Why?

This blog entry took me all day, off and on, to write. I have started it, and erased it, and started over again half a dozen times. Why?

In the last couple of days since I started this blog, I've had several people ask me that one very simple question. Why? Why do I want to let people into my life this way? What is it that makes me want to share my thoughts? Well, this is why.

I enjoy getting to know people…from a distance. I can be extremely shy. Granted, there are times when I must walk right up to someone, introduce myself, and start a conversation. However, those times are few and far between. Thankfully, technology has changed the way that we all must look at the world. It can be totally conceivable that someday someone from Britain, or Zambia, or Thailand may read my blog. As they read it, they will get to know ME. They will come to understand what is important to me. I may never know these people personally. However, I know that they will rejoice in my successes and happiness, and they will sympathize with my sorrows and failures - and hopefully, somewhere along the way, I will get to know at least one new person.

Before I started this blog, Ben brought another aspect of blogging into perspective for me. This ISN’T just about the people that I have never met (and probably never will) getting to know me. It is also about the people who already know me. In some aspects, I’ve slowly become a stranger to some of the people that I love the most. This includes the people I love that I’ve either spent too much time away from during the last nine years, as well as the ones that I’ve met since then.

In today’s high-paced world it seems as if everyone has a cell phone or a Blackberry or some other kind of complicated piece of electronic equipment. Yes, it’s convenient and easy and you can talk to anyone, any time, any where. But do we really stop, talk, and really pay attention to what is being said? Do we really get to know each other?

You can learn so much about a person through what they write. Sometimes, I think you can get to know someone even better when you communicate through the written word. I think it is something of a lost art. When you write it takes time. You have to think about what it is that you want to say, and make sure that your words accurately convey that.

For centuries, people communicated solely by written missive. It was the only way to get information before the invention of the telegraph and the telephone. What you wrote really had to count. Those letters were lifelines that kept families informed of events that were important. My Nana and my Great-Grandmother Louise both did it during the World Wars, writing to their husbands. My maternal grandmother still writes me letters routinely just to tell me about her week, and I write back. Every night that Ben is at sea, I write him an email before I go to sleep. It’s amazing, but we have gotten to know each other better through letters than I think we could have any other way. Being apart for so long has been extremely hard on both of us, but we both agree that it has been good for us too because we’ve had this opportunity to know each other and REALLY fall in love.

It is much easier to share things with another person if you can think about what it is that you want to say, and then can reread it before you hit the “send” button or seal the envelope, to make SURE that it what you want to say. Just like I will before I hit the “publish” button.

And so, 680 words later, this is my answer to the very simple question “Why?”


…..Because I want to know you, and I want you to know me.