I have a friend, who was until recently my boss, who just can’t understand why anyone would want to have a blog. She just doesn’t get it. And she is a perfect candidate for blogging!
This friend just recently retired from work. She’s leaving soon for a four month trip to South Africa with baggage loaded with at least a couple of mobile phones, umpteen cameras and a nice lightweight laptop. This would be a blogger’s dream, right? But she refuses to start a blog. She will post her photos on a photo sharing web site, but she just doesn’t get the desire to write about personal things and share that with complete strangers that she’ll never meet.
Which leads me to wonder – just why do I do this blogging thing?
I started my blog just over two years ago to serve two main purposes. One was to keep my family back home up to date on what life is like in far away Europe. Secondly I had a lot of pent up observations about life over here and how some things struck me as so different and interesting. I wanted to share those thoughts with the world. I had to get it out of my system.
Over the years (years?! where has the time gone?), and after a period of blogging absence, this blog has changed focus. It’s become more of a weekly diary and contains a lot more about knitting. (Why knitting? Well that’s a blog post all of its own!) Sometimes I wonder if this blog is at all interesting for my readers. I know (via GoogleAnalytics) that I have on average 25 visitors to my blog per day. I still find that astounding. That many people are interested? My life seems to me to be incredibly ordinary. What’s the attraction?
In the last couple of weeks I’ve gotten some feedback that has really made me renew my enthusiasm for keeping up the blog, and it has come from a totally unexpected direction. It has come from my running, of all things!
I first started TRYING to run/jog when I was working at Nike, about 5 years ago. There seemed to be a conspiracy against me running because there was always something going wrong. I had an operation that put me out of physical activity for about 6 months. I hurt my knee. I sprained an ankle. I injured myself trying to start running too much too soon. It just didn’t end!
But eventually, from shear stubbornness and also the realization that I actually LIKE to run, I have had some small success. As I was telling C. last night at Stitch ‘n Bitch, this is the most athletic I’ve ever been in my life, and I just turned 50!
What I’ve heard from several people, from different areas of my life (work, blog, knitting, family, friends) is that my running story has inspired them to try to do the same, to become more physically fit, to give running a try and not to be discouraged. Me. I’ve inspired someone, and more than just one. Wow.
That, dear readers, is all I need to hear to keep at it. And that means keeping at the blogging and telling my normal stories of my normal life, and keeping up the running. All I can say is, I am not so special. You can reach your goals too. And to quote the great philosopher NIKE, “just do it”.
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