I can't believe I'm doing this...

I can't believe I'm starting a blog. It's something that I have contemplated for quite sometime. The Blogger icon on my iGoogle page would stare me in the face every time I got online, but I could never get the nerve up to actually click on it to create one. But my longing to write finally overcame good reason, and here I am...documenting my thoughts in cyberspace for all the world to see. It makes me feel so vulnerable, so exposed, to have my (often) senseless ramblings available to others...which is exactly why I'm doing it.

I think that my natural inclination has always been to keep certain parts of me hidden from others. I think a lot of people are that way. Maybe it's a fear of being exposed that holds us back, or of sharing too much only to have what we shared used against us, or of not measuring up to certain standards or expectations. But I think the thing that holds us back the most is the fear of feeling like we're the only one...that no one else in this world can ever understand or identify with our thoughts, our feelings, our desires. We become the victims of our own fear.

Writing has always been my vein for sharing the "real me." I feel like my words often fail me and I fall short of what I really mean when I'm say them aloud (ironic, seeing as how I got a degree in Communication). But writing allows me to untangle my thoughts a bit...and to share them with others. So I write in the hopes of exposing myself, of being more susceptible to vulnerability...and that someone, somewhere, will read my words and think, and as C.S. Lewis expressed so well, "What? You too? I thought I was the only one."

Hopefully, my fear of "putting myself out there" won't make me realize tomorrow morning what a terrible idea this is...