As I sit down to write each week – sometimes at my kitchen table, other times on the couch or at our home office desk – I often find myself almost frozen with doubts.
I feel a dramatic scene from a B rated film where past voices from friends and family drawl in slow motion commenting over the fact I blog. If written words could better give tone to the words said … I’ll simply say the reactions I have received have been less than encouraging.
Those comments, those doubtful tones and sneer remarks lock in my brain as I sit down to type. Usually I come to my laptop with an idea or topic in mind, but as words fill out on the page, I find myself swimming in self-doubt. Because I’m not all that.
I am not a phenomenal cook. I am mediocre at best using a sewing machine. I raise a humble garden that would never win any competition. I can produce where I can, but what I manage to put away is certainly not enough to feed my family all through winter. My bread, pies, and other bakes could definitely come out prettier. I don’t always stay in my perfectly budgeted column of allocated funds each month. And I am such a novice woodworker it’s frustrating.
I am full of flaws and far cry from perfect.
So why, then, would someone like me choose to keep a blog? What do I have to offer the world that no one else does?
Well, to be honest, I don’t know that I do have anything to offer the world through the world wide web that no one else has to offer.
If I look for it, I can always find someone better that myself. A better cook, a better seamstress. A better gardener, canner, food preserver, and certainly a better homemaker.
There is always someone “better.” But that doesn’t mean I should quit trying to be me.
This blog and my articles posted here are not meant to showcase my superior skills. Quite the opposite. This blog and my articles are meant to be real projects and disciplines that I have tried (successfully or unsuccessfully) in attempt to improve my everyday life.
This blog is about being raw. Raw like honey raw.
There is a lot of work that goes on to create these things – all of these things. And in the end, I hope the finished project does look pretty and desirable. But it’s full of flaws and imperfections.
And a for being just another blog. Yeah, I guess I am. Just like another sandwich shop on the corner – this little corner of the web – and that’s okay with me.
