Three Years of Blogging

I remember, sometime around my sophomore year of college, sitting around a table in one of the cafeterias with some of my friends, one of them a computer science major a year ahead of me. That was the first time I ever heard the word "blog." The computer science major mentioned that he had started one, and that he was using it every day. Back in 2006, "blog" was not a word you heard every day, and we all just looked at him with what I'm sure were confused expressions until he explained what it meant. 

"It's like a diary where I write about my life," he said, "but on the internet." 

Mostly everyone shrugged and went back to whatever it was they were talking about before, well used to the strange goings-on of the computer science arm of our particular group of friends, but I remember being confused, and asking more questions.

"You mean you make your diary public?" I asked. "Like, so anyone who wants to can read it?"

He confirmed that, yes, that was indeed exactly what he was doing, and my mind flashed to the stack of well-used journals on the shelves of my bedroom at home and the one currently hidden under the mattress in my dorm room, and I was suddenly filled with horror at the idea of anyone delving beneath the covers of those books. I barely resisted the urge to bolt from the cafeteria to make sure my journal was still where I left it and that it had not been magically published online while I ate my cafeteria pizza and frozen yogurt.

It seemed antithetical to me, that one would want to publish on the internet the kinds of things that are usually written with pen and paper and buried in a journal never to be read again, and certainly never to be read by anyone except for the writer. I remember thinking I would never, ever do that. I was probably rather smug about it.

And yet, nine years later, here I am. On my blog, on the third anniversary of the day I pressed "publish". And as I go back through my archives of the last three years, I laugh at the girl who blanched in horror at the idea of sharing her life with the masses. Because that's exactly what I do now. I share. A lot.

It didn't begin that way, exactly. Three years ago, when I was just starting out, I wrote about things that amused me. I wrote about books and my family and my new-found love of running, and that's pretty much the way it rolled for awhile. But then it changed. I started digging deeper, telling stories, and connecting with other people who were also writing the stories of their lives online, and I just fell in love with it all.

Blogging taught me to keep my eyes open and to see the stories that are everywhere. It showed me that online friends are as real as in person friends, and through blogging I learned that there is a joy in writing to be read. And more than anything else, I have learned over the past three years that there is an ineffable power in sharing our stories, especially the ones that are hard. Because, as I wrote a few weeks ago, we all have rough paths to walk, and by telling our stories, we allow people who have been there before to walk alongside us, and we hold out our hands to the people behind us, so that we can help show them the way through.

This past year was, admittedly, a tough one for me, and so much of what I wrote, I didn't publish, mostly because I just wasn't ready. But now that I am seeing my way clear of the tough stuff and standing just on the brink of major change as we get ready to welcome a new baby this summer, I am ready to write about both what was, and what is to come. Because all of this - the bad, the good, the downright miraculous - this is all a part of my story, and it is a story that I want to tell and to remember because, for better or for worse, this is me, and there is a power in that.

Three years ago today I started this blog, and on that day I had no idea what I was doing or what it would become. Some days I'm still not sure, but I do know that I want to be here, in this place I made, writing words, and telling stories. So here's to year four. To memories in the past, to major changes ahead, and to blogging my way through it all.

Four Years

We had the best wedding date. That's all there is to it.

I knew that I wanted a fall wedding, sometime after the Jewish holidays were over but before the first snow flakes fell. And when we realized that October 10th was a Sunday - the day of the week when Orthodox Jewish weddings most often take place - nothing would do but that we pick that date. Because the year was 2010, there was no way we were passing up the chance to have our wedding on 10-10-10. 

So October 10, 2010 it was.

The day of our wedding the sky was bright blue and the temperature was in the 70s - unseasonably warm for Pittsburgh, Pennsylvania, where it often starts snowing November 1st and doesn't stop until June. I thought it was a good omen, but the truth is, it could have been pouring rain and I wouldn't have cared at all.

It would have been a beautiful day no matter what.

Since this past Friday - our actual anniversary - was a Jewish holiday, I spent this morning looking at some of our wedding pictures for the first time in a long time, and going back to that day in my mind. The frenzy of it all, the family and friends who gathered, the disorganized mess that our chuppah devolved into which turned into the best and most hilarious part of the day, my fortuitous change into running shoes for the dancing part of the evening which probably saved me from breaking an ankle when an over-zealous chair holder accidentally dumped me off of mine during the "lift them up on chairs" portion of the evening, not having time to eat anything but cookies, and all the rest.

My photographer took more than 1,000 pictures, and in honor of four years, I am posting some of my favorites here.

To the four years past, and to the many, many more to come.

Two Years of Blogging

Two years ago today, I started this blog on a whim.

It was a Friday and I didn't have anything to do. I was staring out the window at the dreary, misty afternoon, when words started running through my head. This was not, at that point, an unnatural occurrence. For weeks, whenever I had a free moment, I found myself scribbling essays. I had legal pads filled with stories and sentences and thoughts and words, but I didn't know what to do with them until that Friday afternoon.

I created a bare bones blog and in just a few minutes I had emptied my head of the words that had been filling it and, for the very first time, pressed publish. And it was thrilling. It didn't much matter to me that only 10 people read my first post, and that seven of those people were related to me either by blood or by marriage.

Suddenly I had a voice.

At first, this blog was a fun way to write and to be read, if only by a (very) few people. But over the past year, during my second year of blogging, it has turned into something else entirely. Writing on this blog has given me a way to process what is in my head before I am even aware that it is there. It gives me a way to say the things I want to say, when spoken words are too difficult to find or not nearly enough. It helped me through a traumatic move, the end of a friendship I thought would last forever, and other tough stuff. It has been a way to celebrate old friends and best friends, and say thank you to new friends for welcoming us in. It has been a way to mark change, both hugely significant and quietly important. It has been a way to document things I never, ever want to forget. It has been a way to celebrate family, and it has even been a way to celebrate myself, as things change, and as time marches on.

This blog has given me opportunities over the past year that I never could have dreamed of. Things I have written here have won contests and then won again. My words have been read by more people than I ever thought possible. And I had the absolute honor of having the hardest words that ever came out of my head published in a book alongside the most beautifully talented female writers I have ever had the privilege to read.

As I prepared to publish this post - my 377th one - I found myself looking back at my archives and re-reading some of my old posts. I laughed a little and cried a little and cringed a little, but realized that one thing is absolutely true. I am proud of what I have created here in this place, and this blog is a piece of myself that I would be lost without.

Thank you a million times to the incredible writing community I am lucky enough to call my own, and to you all, for coming back day after day to read the words I suddenly can't stop writing.

10/10/10 - 10/10/13: Three Years

Seven years together.

Three years of marriage.

Happy anniversary to my very best guy.

There's no one else I would rather have joining me on this wild and lovely ride.

2007

2008: Law School Graduation

2009

2010

2011

2012: Tel Aviv, Israel

2013: New House