Fiona's Blog: How Blogging Has Been My Confidant
When I first started blogging for Rachel, a blog a week seemed an impossible task—something a mere weakling human like myself could never hope to achieve. I would wake up in the middle of the night, nervously anticipating the day I would run out of blog ideas and be forced to post photos of puppies instead, in a sad attempt to gain favor with my many devastated fans. Then the next night, I would wake up clawing at my own hair despairing that there wouldn’t even be fans to be appeased by my photos of puppies. All in all, I was a little bit of a nervous wreck.Then, a few weeks before my first blog was due to go live, something incredible happened. I would sit down at my computer to watch instant Netflix, go on Facebook, or some other guilty pleasure, and my mind would suddenly fill with an idea. I’d scramble to open a word document in time to jot down whatever thought or sentence had jumped into my brain, and before I knew it I would have a thousand word piece on getting your period or photo-shopping or Facebook in front of me. It was like my mind had been brimming over with blogs just waiting to be written down for months—maybe years—and now that I had the opportunity, I could hardly stop them from leaping out.I had blogged before I wrote for Rachel. On my own website, BarbarasAngels.com, and on the Girls Leadership Institute’s blog Woosh!, I had let some of these feelings escape my mind and fly into cyberspace, but I hadn’t been pushed to blog consistently in the way I have been for the past two years.Don’t get me wrong, it hasn’t always been easy. There have been nights I have sat, eyes glazed over, pajama-clad, in front of my computer screen, typing “blah blah blah” over and over in an empty Word document titled “bloggy bloggerman” (yes, this was actually the title of one blog in a moment of writer’s block).
Somehow for nearly every Sunday of the past two years, a blog has made its way onto my Word document and onto the internet. When I try to understand how this miracle has happened, I realize it’s because no matter how average my life may seem at times, I always have something to say.
I’ve blogged about the mundane (the trials and tribulations of preparing for prom), and the controversial (should we judge another culture by whether or not their women are veiled?). I’ve blogged about the embarrassing moments (feeling the wind literally nip at my behind, when I ripped my dress at an important event) and the moments I’m proud of (running for president of my school). I’ve always had something on my mind I could write about, and trust me, it’s not because I’m some fascinating individual with the secret to writer’s block (it’s chocolate). It’s because I, like all teenage girls, have a lot on my mind—or at least that’s what I’ve discovered through blogging.
Between navigating the battlefield that is high school—and the relationships that are formed and destroyed there—and simply being a part of and witnessing popular culture as a young woman in today’s society, we girls have a lot to think about.
When I was younger, my friends and I kept diaries, confided in stuffed animals, and told ourselves stories. Unfortunately, somewhere around the time that life starts getting more complicated and we actually have more on our minds, we stop investigating our own thoughts. For me, blogging has been that childhood diary, teddy bear, or best friend. Although far less anonymous, it has allowed me to realize and express feelings I might never have known, otherwise. In that way, as cliché as it may sound, it has truly made me a better person.So, I wish I could go back to those days before my first blog when I would wake up, worried and scared that I had nothing to say. If I could, I would tell myself that my thoughts were valid, and that if I just sat and waited, the words would soon come.