Raison d' etre

I haven't forgotten my blog exists, but I have felt devoid of writing inspiration. Other blogs post recipes or neat pictures of interesting adventures or landscapes or describe current events or discuss books. I have a dear friend who just posted watercolors she painted herself; it caused an identity crisis of blog proportions. I have no paintings or photos or revolutions to post. So why write? In short, what is the raison d'etre of this blog?

I began writing this after graduating from college. This seems to be the case for a lot of my blogging friends actually, and that may reveal one key fact about "Now and Not Yet": it is one way I am grappling with the experience of being in this particular place, at this particular time, as this particular twenty-something year old woman. I don't write in order to update friends about daily goings on, but I do write to describe where I happen to be. It is an existential practice.

Doesn't mean anyone needs to care much Where I Happen To Be, but the act of synthesizing and analyzing and actualizing thoughts into a piece of writing is enormously helpful for me. I like the work of posting for an audience, even of one or two. I mean, you should read my journal. It is inane and borderline megalomaniac. Pages and pages about myself. A blog forces me to ask whether or not the world at large would care whether or not I feel cranky and like eating twelve quesadillas. I have to edit.

Apparently I have this blog because a) I like it and b) it helps me. I say, "apparently" because I have just made the aforementioned observations for the first time in the process of creating this post. Utility proven. Raison d'etre discovered (for now.)

[postscript: There is the auxiliary benefit in sharing oneself that it mqy occasionally encourage other people. I really like when that happens. So. I will keep writing to find out where I am, and hope that it might help others every once and a while, too.]

Fin.