Two Months Later

OK, I'm doing it. I'm leaping into frigid waters of the blog pool. I've written earlier posts, which I didn't publish, but with this post I will open 'er up to the general public. I've felt weird about publishing a blog, "who cares?" being the main theme. If no one cares, no one will read it and I don't have to worry about what I write, or how well I write it, or if my commas are in the right place. But if no one reads it, then what's the point? Round and round. Anyway, I've settled on it being a place for me to write, which I need to do more of anyway, and a place to wrestle with my thoughts and feelings about life in middle age. So this blog is first and foremost for me.

While I've come to care less about how people perceive me than I did even four months ago (I blame Facebook), the idea of any random person who I might have worked with, played with, loved, pissed off, or been raised by reading my deepest (OK, not that deep) thoughts definitely gives me pause. I spent my entire work career keeping a pretty solid wall separating my work and social life. Yet I'm not sure it did me any favors--I had to admit to myself that I missed out deepening my connection to some really cool people.

So one of my goals as I make my way through this life is to stop giving a damn. I don't mean that in terms of caring about people and their feelings and needs and so on. I do mean that I want to work toward acceptance--of myself and of the fact that not everyone will like me or what I do all, or maybe even most, of the time. I want to stop wanting so much to be liked. I want to stop wanting to be SAFE.

So I will have to bear with myself as I figure out what this blog will be, how much I share and in what way. And if anyone else ever reads this, they will have to bear with me too as I work to shrug off my self-consciousness and find my voice.