theFrog Grows Up
In November 2003, I began blogging. I started out on Blogger as a way to do NaNoWriMo without actually writing a novel. The initial idea was to write 1000 essays, each at least 1000 words. It was 500 songs I loved and 500 songs I hated. Simple enough concept, but very narrow in scope for a sustainable blog.
Obviously, the blog has changed since then – I migrated from Blogger to Movable Type. I expanded the topics of my writing to include day to day life, ended the music project (though, I really should dig up those essays and repost them), changed themes at least 5 times (probably more) and eventually landed here – to the WordPress powered blog you see before you.
I’ve had good times here – I reconnected with old friends I hadn’t heard from in years. I made new friends that I would not have now were it not for this site. I’ve broken this blog more times than I can count, but took great pride in fixing it myself. I’ve made people laugh. I’ve made people cry happy tears. I have made genuine connections with people that, despite being via the internet, are every bit as real and meaningful as anyone I have known in my off-line life.
I’ve had bad times here, too – there were two server crashes (one of which left several posts lost to the ether forever). There was one successful hacking attempt (the fault of a shoddy webhost who failed to update). I’ve hurt people I care about with insensitive things I’ve written here. I’ve been hurt by people who… well… they know what they’ve done and why they’ve done it – I still get links in from “check out the worst blog EVER in history!!!” websites/forums/blog-posts designed by those that think they have been clever and anonymous.
Recently – very recently, in fact – someone called me on hiding behind theFrog. It stunned me that someone I barely knew, someone who has not been a long-time reader of this blog, someone who does not know me off-line, was able to pick up in such a short period of time exactly how much I was relying on theFrog for my personality. Granted, I might be reading too much into what was actually said, but it was significant to me because the fears I had been trying to cavalierly brush aside and ignore were suddenly right there out in the open.
Thing is, it’s been weighing on my mind pretty heavily before I was called on it, but once it happened, the previously still, small voice in my head turned into a roar. YES! the voice practically screamed at me. I’m not crazy for thinking that theFrog persona is a crutch! I’m not crazy for thinking that theFrog persona is holding me back! He sees it, too! There’s more to me than just theFrog and until I embrace the Real Me, I will never climb that Everest.
The problem with being theFrog rests in the fact that because I don’t have my own personal face on every single thing I write, I don’t make any effort to put any quality in the things I write. Hell – sometimes, I didn’t even have to write… I post a meme or quiz or some other lame blog thing and continue to hide behind the happy little frog face. I could be content in the knowledge that if what I write here is crap, that’s ok – it’s not me (the real ME) writing it.
That, of course, is why I haven’t been writing much here lately. It’s the conflict within me that what I write here is purposely trivial, but I’m in a mind-space now that I want to write more than trivial things. When this site got started, I had no delusions of the fact that I would never get a book deal from any of the content here. I never questioned that my hit meter would stay low. I would never be quoted on CNN or MSNBC or FoxNews. I would never be called for an interview on… whatever bloggers are being interviewed about nowadays. I’ve been debating myself about what to do with this site for ages and… and always just getting so overwhelmed that I would decide not to post anything rather than have to post something fake yet again.
Just prior to being called out (literally, like 2-3 days before), I did something. Something I’d been thinking of doing for a long time, but always put off. I bought me. I staked my own claim in my own name. I was in the process of setting up that site and compiling the content for it before I launched it or made any announcements. I had just made the bold (for me) leap of changing my twitter pic from my cute little frog face to… well… my own. Then I got called out and I realized that I was doing exactly what I always do: get so bogged down by the minutiae of change that I don’t end up actually doing any changing.
So, I did it. My website is me. The writing there is mine and I have no one to blame but myself if the quality of the writing is not up to snuff. I won’t lie – I’m scared to death about it, but it needs to be done.
I don’t know what will happen to this site yet. I may roll it into the other one. I may just let it die. I haven’t decided yet and I’m not sure when I’ll get around to it.
Feel free to stop by the new diggs. There’s not much there yet, but give it time. You may like what you see there. You may hate it. You may find out that theFrog you’ve always known is vastly different from the person behind her… but at least you’ll be finally seeing the real me.
