Starting is the Hardest Part

Starting is the hardest part.

Thinking, forming, typing, getting it on the page… it all comes easy after the first few words. Maybe a paragraph or so and then your fingers take on a mind of their own.

I’ve had this account for about a month. I've been reading and learning and pocketing ideas, keeping notes and blurbs in my phone. All this time, I've been waiting. Waiting for the perfect story to hit me, the perfect memory or the perfect moment or the perfect... something.

It never came. The longer I waited, the more dissatisfied I felt about the whole situation. I wanted to test the waters, to get something out into the world. I NEEDED to share something and get the pressure off my chest. So here it is.

This is my first post. This is my beginning. I'm making this my "perfect" moment, let my fingers type what they want, seeing where this goes. I can already breathe easier. My ideas already seem more fluid. Memories of childhood and family and first loves. It's all right here, and now I'm ready.

This is where I start telling my story, piece by piece. This is the first thing you will read about me. This is the first glimpse into my brain, into my past. This is where I find my writing style, where I decide my transparency. This is where I decide if I want anonymity or recognition.

It was tempting to start this as a source of a little extra money, a way to provide spending money for a beach trip in the future. It didn't take very long at all to realize that monetary motivation was not going to be enough. That it didn’t spark ideas, wasn’t inspirational, didn’t provoke anything in me to sit down and spill over onto the page. This has to be for me.

Yes, this has to be for me. This has to be for my creativity. As soon as I lose that thought, I lose my authenticity. I lose my voice in my own stories and memories. I must maintain authenticity for this to be worth it in my mind, for taking the time to write all of this down to be worth it.

There is some fear at being found out, and I think that contributed to my hesitation to start. What if I write something too personal? What if someone figures me out, and finds out something I don’t want them to know? Do I refrain from writing it? Or do I take the risk? That’s something else I have to decide as I go.

At this point I feel like I’m rambling, but I think that’s just how this is going to be. I’ll write what I want, you read what you want. If you want to stop part way through, then that’s what you do. In the meantime, I’ll keep typing.

Maybe one day I will be able to look back on this like a diary, a collection of all my memories I’ll be too old to remember and all the ones that are too good to forget. It will be like having little snapshots of my life, but better than photos or facebook statuses because I’ll get to read, to remember, how I really felt. I’ll get to go back through my emotions, back through my thoughts. I’ll get to relive joy and pain and happiness and the bittersweet moments of life.

I’m excited about the possibilities that these pages and that this site hold for me, and hopefully what it holds for some of you as well. I’m excited to read along with you and relate and share experiences with you.

Starting is the hardest part, but here we go.