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I'm a down to earth girl who loves to laugh at others...I mean make others laugh.
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"This is the most exciting day of my life...and I was pulled on stage once to dance at a Bruce Springsteen concert."
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Thursday, July 21, 2011

Didn't We Almost Have It All

Helloooo blogging world. It's me.

Back by popular demand, I'm attempting to dust off my blogging fingers and jump back in the game. I know it's been a while. Proof? It wasn't too easy getting here today. See, it's been so long since I last updated (almost two years to be exact) that how to access my blog itself has changed. I felt like the prodigal son returning from college only to find out his bedroom has been turned into mom's knitting area. Apparently Blogger no longer supports FTP publishing, which is the equivalent of "No Habla Ingles" to me. All YOU need to know is that I still pay for my old domain over at Go Daddy, but in order to publish here I had to add a lame blogspot to the end of my address. I don't know how to build a redirect page or change how to publish, but I would like to streamline the two if I can. Because you know, I'm worried, I finally return and only 2 out of the 5 people who still care about this blog will know how to get here. So if you can help a girl out, I'm all ears.

So why the long absence and why the return? Well, the long absence is a string of excuses. Some of them are just that, excuses while others are legit reasons that have kept me from keeping up. For starters, I've said it before and I'll say it again, life itself gets in the way. When I first started this blog back in 2003 I I was in a period of flux. AOGB gave me a platform and a voice to write about said flux. Blogging was relatively new at the time and being a girl in her early twenties, I liked finding an outlet for my release. Discovering that people liked me, really liked me was just the unexpected cherry on top. And it snowballed from there.

Before I knew it I was managing and reciprocating blogroll updates, recruiting a redesign, scheduling time to make sure to maintain blogging relationships and etiquette and adding pins, bells and whistles etc...because someone, somewhere said it was the thing to do. Every time I had a semi intriguing thought I'd jot it down, knowing I could turn it into a full-fledged rant as a blog post. Eventually I had a lot of friends, a good core group of fans and little ol' me was even in the running for blogging awards.

But that was then, this is now.

Sometimes I get overwhelmed by the idea of returning and trying to recapture it all. As Eddie Money once said, "I wanna go back and do it all over, but I can't go back I know". Not only has the blogging game changed, I've changed. For one thing I don't feel "hip" to the game anymore. Do people still even read and write blogs anymore? In my opinion it's all about tweets, plus ones and how clever you can be in 150 characters or less. I see your status update game and I raise you a few thousand word post. So this begs the question...is blogging obsolete or even worse, am I obsolete?

Another issue? Anonymity. I created this blog with my identity attached to it. I don't regret doing that. But sometimes there are some things you don't want to share with the world as yourself, if that makes any sense. Sure I could rant about my job or my life, but it's a double-edged sword. The more you put yourself out there, the more risk there is involved. Over the years I've thought about creating another blog and starting fresh, but then I thought to myself, you can't even maintain AOGB and you want to start something new?!

Then there's the last but not least reason. In a nutshell, it all boils down to ego. Don't get me wrong, I'm flattered that people still remember the glory days of AOGB and contact me to ask what happened or where I went. But a part of me always gets sad when I get asked questions like that. The answer is complicated and simple all at the same time. Yes, time and technology are legitimate factors for me. But then there's the looming feeling that I coulda been a contender. Blogging was a party I always felt I came just a little too late, or early, to. At the height of AOGB I was dancing as fast as I could while trying to maintain relationships, my first year teaching, an exercise routine, etc. I danced for a while, but since I was contributing to so many things at once it didn't feel like my best and since it wasn't my best, for me it wasn't good enough. Deep down I was a perfectionist when it came to AOGB and towards the "end" of the heyday I could see the next wave coming in and I just simply couldn't keep up. So instead of trying, I went on hiatus.

But here's the thing: I don't want to be the Debra Winger of blogging. I'd rather be known as Diane Lane. And if you know what I mean by that sentiment, you're in the right place. So I suppose the way to do that is to not make any promises to myself or to others and not expect anything in return. This blog might never have the readership it once did and that's ok. I might never been able to catapult AOGB into something more like I once secretly hoped, and that's ok, too. Instead I need to blog for myself when I can, organically, naturally. The rest will fall into place.

Deep down I think Debra would agree, too.

 

 


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