A New Old New Year's Goal

On New Year’s Day, my adult children and their families usually gather with Paul and me for a nice meal to celebrate new beginnings. We remember highlights of the last year. We make predictions for the next year, both political and personal, both realistic and fantastic. And we share our goals for the coming year.

Usually, my goals are predictable: exercise more, eat healthy, lose five pounds. Last January, though, I took my courage in my hands and shared a goal I had been thinking about for months. I would start a blog and post weekly.

I was inspired by a friend who had that year started a blog and posted every single day. That is EVERY day. I had followed her blog and been fed by her wisdom and understanding of how to live well. As I read her essays, I thought, I have things to say too. I could write something. I would like to share some of the ideas that have been ricocheting around in my head. I would like my children to know about my ideas. I would like to know about them myself, in a more coherent form than just “I had this thought.”

So there at the dinner table, when it was my turn to share my goal, I took a deep breath and quavered out, “I think I will start a blog, maybe.” My family was kind, supportive, and even enthusiastic. I thought, yeah—I will.

So I went to blogspot.com and figured out how to set up a blog. I got my more experienced children to advise me. I started some notes on an idea that had been knocking around in my head, then wrote it up, then revised it and edited it. Finally, on January 6, I copied it into the blank page on BlogSpot, I held my finger over the “publish” button, took a deep breath, and I posted my first entry.

I shared the link to my Facebook and friends, and then—oh what joy—people began telling me they enjoyed reading my ideas. I felt like I had entered into a conversation with others about these ideas that mattered so much to me. I felt like I had shared myself with my friends and family.

But more than that, I felt that I had shared my ideas with my self.  That may seem strange because of course the ideas were there in my own head and I knew them.  But the ideas were fragmented and incomplete until I gave them words and sentences, paragraphs and structure. Then I came to know better what I meant, to know better what I believed.

I taught writing for over 40 years. Hundreds of students—maybe thousands—have heard me extoll the power of writing. I have told them, “Each of you is unique. No one else is like you. You and only you can write what you have to write. If you don’t write it, if you don’t share, the world will be a poorer place. If you do share your experience, your understanding, you can make the world better.”

But did I do it? Not really. But now I have. Over the last 12 months, I have written about my work, my family, my faith, and my struggles. But most of all I have written what I know. And because I wrote about it, I know a bit more about what I know.

To those of you who have read my posts and shared this journey, I am incredibly grateful. Nothing makes writing more satisfying than a kindly and appreciative audience.

And now, this New Year’s Day, I know what my goal will be: I want to go on writing for my blog.