Getting Personal

I get annoyed with myself for letting so much time pass between posts on this site. I think back to how regularly I used to post here (well not this blog, but the one that existed previously in this space), and I get even more annoyed.

In my defense, life was a bit different back then. I was single and had just hauled my butt 700 miles away to chase a dream. The whole reason the blog started was to keep my family up-to-date on the latest and greatest happenings from California. …of course, that explanation sounds much nicer than how it actually felt. To speak more plainly, I was getting annoyed at having to re-count the same stories over and over by telephone to each member of my family. So I started the blog and told them all to get online.

I wrote very frequently back then. Every little thing that happened was spun into a narrative published promptly – usually the same day that it happened. I actually remember it too. I remember typing the posts while sitting at Starbucks after work. I remember enjoying my life, and being genuinely excited to tell the world about it. Words flowed easily and the stories were fun to tell. So what’s changed?

The stories are still good

I still enjoy my life! Great things happen every day, but the place I share my stories is different. My lovely wife is the first person I run to tell the exciting news. She is usually within earshot, so she gets it even before it’s a story. I still tell the rest of my family stories… but while they were once 700 miles away, now they are 2. So they get them in person. And with that, I’ve sort of covered the core audience of the previous blog. …so is it the audience? Is that what changed to slow things down?

I’ve thought about why I post less, and that internal monologue usually ends up with me blaming life changes, wife, kids, yard, house, work, bills, twitter, facebook… all of which are perfectly valid excuses, and I’m sure they all contribute to this blog getting pushed down the priority list, but none of them really feel like the core of the reason I don’t post here.

I decided some research was in order.

The Archives

I fired up the ‘ol computer and dug deep into the archives of that old blog. My goal: to remind myself what I was writing about that was so damned interesting.

I found that reading those old posts brought back a flood of exciting memories. It was so much fun to read the funny, stupid and passionate things I had to say about my life as new adventures unfolded in front of me. After enjoying myself for a good 30 minutes (I actually was enjoying reading what I had written about my own life, is that narcissistic?) I let my eyes wander to the very short bio that was on the top of every page.

I’m a 25 year old guy living out a dream in southern California. This blog is just a brain-dump of whatever is holding my interest at the time of posting.

I rarely stick to a theme and always have an opinion.

BINGO! That little passage held the nugget that was the exact reason you don’t hear from me more on this site. Pay close attention to that last line: “I rarely stick to a theme and always have an opinion”.

That old site was a hodge-podge of whatever struck me as interesting to write about. This site… well… isn’t. Or at least it wasn’t, because I’m going to do some things different now. Or at least I’m going to start. Here, let’s back up just a bit to why this site isn’t the place I post everything.

The “new” site you’re looking at now came about when I needed a place to present my work, as I was getting ready to make a jump into the freelance world. I needed a place that stayed professional and presented information that centered around what I did for a living, and interests of the people I wanted to hire me. I ripped out a lot of the bits I felt were unprofessional and tried to stick to a theme of designery & eventy things.

I am declaring this course a complete failure.

I have a place to present work. So over time this site developed an identity crisis. It’s not really a personal site… but it’s not a business/professional site either.

Live in the now

So, I’ll no longer be censoring myself, my personality, or my way of speaking, typing, or thinking on this site. I’m taking it back as my personal platform to pontificate about what ever the hell I want and tell my stories to people who may or may not care to read them.

I can’t promise it will pick up quickly. But for now this feels like the right thing to do with this site.

I’ll still talk about designery and eventy things that are cool… but it will most likely be mixed with stories of insomnia, stress, dog poop, a two foot tall chaos machine ruining all my nice stuff, mowing the lawn, renovating an old house, my talented wife, my damn cute son and other completely unrelated topics of interest to me. You can stay and read, like them, don’t like them. I don’t care. I want my soapbox back.

Thank you, and goodnight.

(photo credit: FindMiMi)