personal growth

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this was originally posted at embrace your life. i wanted to share it with my readers here and find out what you have learned about yourself through your blogging journey!

i’ve been blogging for about two years now. i can’t believe it has already been that long. it really feels like just yesterday i hit “publish” for the first time.

while having two years under my belt in no way makes me any sort of blogging expert or guru, i do feel like it gives me a little experience. i’ve had this list of things i have learned about myself since i started blogging in my inspiration journal for a few months now. i’ve been writing things down as i realized hey! this is a part of me that has grown since i started this – better write it down!

i never thought that blogging would contribute so greatly to my personal growth and i really wanted to document some of the things i have learned over the past year or so of blogging, since that is when i really started to take it seriously. and, i wanted to share a couple of them with you! 🙂 because you know, we are friends and all. 😉

finding friends

when chris and i moved to louisiana, and for the first time in my entire life i lived more than 2 miles away from parents, friends, and most of my family, i had never felt so alone and so “de-friended” in my whole life. we have now lived here almost three years and i have made friends with a couple of people here and there but i still don’t feel like i have really made the same sort of relationships as with those i knew from home.

of course, there is a huge lapse in time here – my friends from home i’ve known since i was in diapers, going through all of my school years, bad boyfriends, marriages, new lives and babies with. i had to learn to be realistic and come to terms with the fact that i probably won’t ever have friends like that here because i haven’t had 25 years of getting to know them. and that is okay.

friends forever trinket bowl from say your piece

now. blogging has brought me friendships i never thought i would find. i am much closer to many of the friends i have made online in the last year than the friends i have made in west monroe. i’m still trying to adjust to the fact that when i talk about cassie, kelsey, kasey or kelly (hi – could i meet some people whose names DON’T start with a hard k sound? thanks) i have to explain that i met them through blogging. and of course that is when the weird looks and questions come out.

you made friends with someone online? how is that possible? you barely know them. they could be a total farce and try to kill you. you’re weird.

okay – so some of this is me projecting my feelings on to them because i still think it is a little weird and unnatural. but i’ve realized over the past year that friends come from anywhere. God orchestrates these relationships and chance meetings through millions of people online because there is a reason He wants me to know every person i’ve befriended online.

it might be weird to those that don’t do this. but to me it is starting to be more natural. it also helps that, even though my husband might not know where you live or what your blog’s name is, when i mention certain names he knows they are a friend i have made online. that helps.

timelines

one thing i have always always struggled with is what kind of timeline i operate on. if you give me a task, it is highly likely that i will get it done as soon as humanly possible. if you send me an email i will probably drop everything else and answer it right then. if you tweet me, you should expect a tweet back from me within 30 seconds to two minutes.

i love you more than twitter card from storey shop

i’m a crazy person. i know this. i’ve pretty much learned to accept that i don’t like to leave things hanging, unanswered, or partially done. it literally KILLS me to leave a post in draft mode. physically ills me people. i have a problem. 🙂 i also have a lot less unread emails in my inbox. but that is just how i operate.

i have had to acknowledge that the rest of the world very unlikely operates on this same timeline. just because someone doesn’t immediately respond to me doesn’t mean they don’t care, are mad at me, read it and forgot about it, or just ignored me altogether. these are seriously all things that run through my head when i don’t hear back from someone within a 24-hour period.

i remind myself (repeatedly in some cases) that it is okay if it takes me a day to answer an email, more then twelve seconds to respond to a tweet or a text, more than two weeks to paint a sign or (gasp) if i leave a post in draft until i get all the pictures edited.

it is okay. it is okay. it is okay.
{deep breath}

these are just two of the many things i have on my list but they are the most important two if you ask me. what are some things you have learned about yourself in your blogging journey?