Born For This

I’m not blogging because…

• I rediscovered the value of private thought, especially given the topics of most interest to me these days
• I started this particular site because I thought I wanted to be a “healthy living blogger”, until I realized I was happier just living healthily
• Corollary to point 2: I wanted to counteract some of the “healthy” food bloggers’ corporate shilling (Arnold sandwich thins, are you kidding me?  Sucralose and cellulose fillers?), but that fire didn’t last long
• Additional corollary: There’s no point in fighting the marketing machine, the smug self-assurance of insecure and therefore tight-knit communities; truth will unravel them of its own accord
• If I’m going to blog about food alone, I need to take a good look into my heart and see what else really needs to be said about weeknight recipes…also, I eat beans and rice most nights, and I’m not willing to have a kitschy blog themed around the many toppings of beans and rice (HINT: VEGETABLES, SAUCES)
• If I’m going to blog about food, it needs to be about the importance of Real Food, and that requires more research and proving than I am willing to devote this year
• If I’m going to blog, I don’t know if I can keep trying to use food as a framing device for what I want to talk about
• I miss my old self-oriented blog, and I think that’s more suited to what I’m actually ‘born for’
• The database error that dumped most of my photos from 2008 and 2009 would be most easily fixed by calling my ex
• I am not always at ease with the messiness of the internet, derived from its omnipresence and immediacy

But, I can feel the words beginning to unfold inside me again, into something richer and more honest, something looser and, hopefully, more beautiful.

Because this world is a f*cking beautiful, beautiful, beautiful place.

Nor is it even about money or traveling.

I spent a long time coming to grips with the upheaval I experienced in my life over the past year. The last several months rang with so many echoes of the past; they sat heavy on my chest and wrapped themselves thick around my brain. All of the relationships, decisions, plans, and good intentions I had cobbled together to make this new, more serious life for myself had come unglued nearly at once.

This morning, I realized I was grateful. When else would I, could I, should I ever get a chance for such a new start at this time of my life? It has been liberating, not life-ending. Everything has begun to come together while my attention was elsewhere.

And that’s exciting, that what I thought would be ashes turned out to be freshly-plowed acres, ripe for planting with the seeds of my real dreams. It’s no burden to start over; I am lucky.  To be honest, I was bordering on miserable in the life I had planned out for myself, and I’m so thankful for the chance to start again with my real hopes and dreams in mind.

Thanks, life.  I’ve got a lot of independence to celebrate this weekend.

Maybe with these?

(source)