It Was So Nice To Meet You
I started this blog in secret. Under down blankets and with the curtains pulled, I started it as a private little project. You see, at the time, I felt very lost, and I felt very sad. I was forgetting all the things that made me special, all the pictures I loved and the books I read and the music that made me walk faster, and dance in my seat, and sing out loud with my eyes closed tight. I was forgetting what I loved about myself, and in the forgetting, had stopped loving myself. I started this blog as a last measure. It was a string around my finger: don’t forget, don’t forget, don’t forget.
Over time, adding to this site, the search for images, the wading through songs to get to the ones I loved the most, the art museum websites and videos about bread and chocolate, the quotes (one after the other after the other), all started to be a buoy. I could spend my day reading about people I admired. I could read a passage from a book I once loved. I found a sweater I liked. A curious portrait. A series of photographs that reminded me of the shore. I could feel myself, slowly, remembering. There I was. Right there.
And when I finally did remember, when suddenly, there I was, I was so relieved, and so proud, and so grateful, that I didn’t want to be a secret anymore. I didn’t want this site to be private. I didn’t want to hide under blankets. There was nothing about this project, or about me, that I wanted to be hush. I added, and I shared, and I wrote, and I talked. You appeared.
I no longer feel as though I need this space to keep me afloat. I feel like I’m swimming on my own, taking big, wide strokes and with strong fluttering kicks. I’m on back so I can open my eyes. I’m not going to blog anymore. I have other things I’m starting—things to be opened and learned and made. This is my last post on this little blog I’ve loved so much.
I found this excerpt by Thoreau, and thought it summed up what this experiment was for me: a conscious endeavor, an attempt to help myself up. I now know how I guided my day and what I shared with others was my greatest accomplishment in memory. It started here.
We must learn to reawaken and keep ourselves awake, not by mechanical aids, but by an infinite expectation of the dawn, which does not forsake us even in our soundest sleep. I know of no more encouraging fact than the unquestionable ability of man to elevate his life by a conscious endeavor. It is something to be able to paint a particular picture, or to carve a statue, and so to make a few objects beautiful; but it is far more glorious to carve and paint the very atmosphere and medium through which we look, which morally we can do. To affect the quality of the day, that is the highest of arts.
Thank you, everybody. It was a really wonderful year.
