This post is part of a brave blogging link-up that’s part of Liv Lane’s How To Build a Blog You Truly Love ecourse. Participants were challenged to step outside their comfort zone and share something with you that felt especially brave (other posts can be found here). Since this blogger does not yet have her own blog set up, her brave post is being shared here on Liv’s site. Please feel free to comment and support her courage!
To even post a blog, for me, is brave. Those of you who are avid or long-time bloggers are probably rolling your eyes and thinking – sheesh, how pathetic! But there’s something about going beyond sharing my thoughts and opinions with my friends and family to spewing them out into the vast blogosphere where they are out there, permanently, forever and always, for anyone to find and read that I find intimidating. So here I am, writing a “Brave Blog” my first time out.
Although I am not going to jump right in and reveal any deep dark secrets of my past, I do have a confession o f sorts to make – some days I just feel like running away – literally. It’s not that my life is so horrible and unbearable. Although it has its challenges, it’s really a pretty good life – children grown and almost out on their own, a loving husband, parents who are still alive and living nearby. It’s just that some days I get tired of the role of the good wife, the good mother, the good daughter (not that I succeed at being any of these things, but most days I try). Sometimes I feel the urge to shake off the constraints of my current life, leave it all behind , pack my bags and just walk (or run) away.
Then I ask myself: Where would you go? What would you do? And I realize that I don’t really know the answer. It’s at that moment that I realize that the urge to run away is telling me that my life is in need of revision. Not to change the past, but to reshape and make the most of the present and whatever time I may have in the future. After all, my grandmother lived until she was 101 so I may have a few more years ahead of me and I want to live them well.
So while fleeing the premises of my life may seem like a good idea, deep down inside I know that I value my relationships to family and friends, my ties to place and community too much to just up and leave. Instead of packing my bags I know that, once again, it’s time to examine my perceptions of who I am, what I want the next steps on my life path to be and figure out what revisions in thought and behavior are necessary to create a satisfying ending to the story I’ve lived so far.
Instead of running away today I think I’ll just take a long hike along the river and be back in time for dinner.
