Really, Joe? A blog?

Welcome to my first blog post…. ever.

Fun fact: the first official blog post dates back to 1994… when yours truly was still IN COLLEGE, when access to a dial-up modem was almost worth bragging rights, and when Friends was literally in its first season on the air.

So… I’m a little late to the party.

Nowadays, there’re probably six-year-olds learning how to create & manage a visually-pleasing, very-monetizable blog, between snack breaks.

Well, at least I can be content in wearing the term “late-bloomer” with authenticity.

But, why now? Does the world really need another blog? More distraction? One more thing to add to the to-do or the to-read list? Probably not.

But this is about keeping a promise to myself.

For years people have said it — “You’re such a good writer,” or “I really enjoy your writing.” A compliment, sure, but I didn’t ever take it to heart, because to me it wasn’t really writing.

They weren’t referring to some short story I’d written, or some epic piece of fiction – a novel or a play – or even a magazine article. Instead, they were responding to a personal, well-worded text I’d sent during a difficult moment, a card or an encouraging letter I’d written to a friend or colleague.

More recently, a very frank Facebook post on my unexpected mental health struggles elicited similar comments from friends and strangers, on how it had helped them, moved them.

And again, it would come up – “You really had me the whole way through; you’re such a great writer.”

Believe me, I’m a prolific reader – I LOVE to read the way most like to look at their phones. I am in AWE of the magic certain authors can create. But I don’t have the skill set to compete in that world. Not yet.

Then I discovered that special breed, the essay writers. Those with the inane stories or perspectives that make you laugh – the David Sedarises and Erma Bombecks of the world. Or alternatively, Roxane Gay, Augusten Burroughs and others, who perhaps over-share the terrible, now laugh-out-loud-yet-still-disturbing events in their “how-can-this-all-happen-to-one-person?” existences.  

I finally knew that this is the genre where my musings, my writing, belonged.

Or for now, on a blog — with the permission to fight perfectionism and to instead fail, tinker, grow and improve. To live life and to share it. To finally claim being a writer.

Overcoming some major life hurdles lately has led to a new-found sense of authenticity – in thinking and in mindset – that I must share with the world, for reflection, insight, perhaps laughs. I have finally become a writer who must write. For as my partner Ed said recently:

“You need to put it into words, because that’s what you do.”  

I’ll keep him.