Friday, December 31, 2010

The End

As the leaves started falling this year, this blog took a turn toward the depressing.

When I started blogging, the purpose was largely to force myself to sit down and write.  As an inveterate procrastinator, having that goal of pushing the "Publish Post" button did wonders for my motivation.  It forced me to gather my thoughts, and it forced me to finish them for once.

Throughout the year, I kept a running tab of all the random things that happened to me that would make good writing material.  I still have a list of ideas for posts that remain unwritten, like the time a guy on the street randomly guessed that I was a lawyer; the fact that all the guys in my life have insanely generic monosyllabic names, like Dan, Dave, Doug, Greg, Jeff, Joe, John, Matt, Mike, Pete, Rob; the time that a guy asked me for my phone number after a softball game by throwing his BlackBerry at me and saying "The keypad's on the left"; the shape of my various first dates - dinners, drinks, baseball games, concerts, ferry rides; the time a 80-year old southern gentleman told me I was one of the most gorgeous women he had ever seen in his life.

But I soon found that while these stories were certainly entertaining, it wasn't what I wanted to think about when I sat down to write.  As the year progressed, my posts became less anecdotal and more introspective.  I concentrated instead on all of the negatives - my frustration with the dating cycle, my fear of ending up alone, my constant battle against being disappointed, my fear of never figuring out what it is I should be doing with my life.

I think introspection every now and then can be a great thing, but as I wallowed in my own self-pity and even started writing a post defending people who feel sorry for themselves, I realized that thinking about myself all the time was not making me a happier person.

As I said way back in January, the point of this blog was for me.  For me to remember.  For me to remember what it was like to be 26, living in New York in 2010.

So without realizing it at the time, I had set an expiration date for this blog.  The year twenty-ten is just a few hours away from being over, and with this post, so is this blog.

3 comments:

  1. what a shame. you write so well.

    oh well. happy new year.

    happy new you (:

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  2. it's true. you use words well. here's to a year of poetry and photoblogging. and the old fashion journal.

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  3. I am sad I found this blog only at its end...i do love your writing

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