Being Witnessed

My post on friendship garnered a good bit of response yesterday, on my blog and Facebook. I felt the love and understanding from friends. Thank you. As I said in my comment, I felt virtually {{hugged}}. I also heard from one of my childhood friends regarding the post. I won't go into detail. I'll just say that things are good. We are good ... But it got me thinking ... Why do we take this weird step of posting our lives for the world to see via the internet, on a blog? We have the technology now to do many things, but that doesn't mean we should do them just because we can. As my mom always said when I wanted to do something, because others were doing it, "If your friends jumped off a bridge would you jump too?" It made me wonder for a split second, is it a good idea to allow yourself to be so vulnerable, in such a public way? I have a friend who works in IT and does not allow himself to have any online presence, even to the extent of once removing himself and his email address from an E-vite I sent. My father will not order anything online. That is obviously too extreme for me. I already have LinkedIn, Twitter and Facebook accounts (among others) and order stuff from Amazon regularly, but is it a good idea to allow yourself/myself to be so vulnerable, in such a public way, even if there is the possibility of directly or indirectly hurting others?

Catching up! - Days 10, 11, 12

I am behind on posting, but these three photo sessions help catch me up. I was experimenting with patterns and color combinations over the weekend.

Day 10
I didn't do much Friday, so I wanted to be warm & comfy, but decided to be daring by mixing patterns and colors that I might not normally. Not sure how I feel about it now, but I liked it on Friday! What you cannot see very well in the photo is that my tights are dark purple!

T-shirt - Old Navy, Scarf - Marshall's, Belt - no idea!, Skirt - Trade Roots,
Fleece Tights - Fred Meyer, Shoes - Born, Bracelet - GoodWill

Assumptions & Expectations

I've been doing lots of thinking about the blog, the title and how clothing and the 30 for 30 really fit in with all of THIS (remembering self). What it boils down to is - I have some long held beliefs or assumptions about myself, my body or clothing that have been dictating how I dress or don't dress and really how I feel about and present myself to the world. I am kind of tired of them and would desperately like to move on! Warning! This will probably be a long post ... Let's start with a little history:

To Blog or not to Blog

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Both writing and journaling have been keys to my sanity and ability to stay grounded over the years. I find if and when I get away from writing I lose touch with myself. Guess what? I have not been making journaling a priority! So I decided what better way to work on my writing and take care of myself all at the same time than to reach out to an audience and share with others via a blog? I have been thinking about this for three years. Seriously. And I am finally doing it. Yikes!

I must admit that there is some fear and a little excitement to starting this new venture. The age old questions of whether one is any good, if people will love and accept the honesty and totality are bound to come up. But in reality, it doesn't really matter because it is as much about the process as anything else. Actually, this time it is REALLY about the process. Over the years, I have often tested the waters of a new relationship by sharing a poem or essay and gauging the response. Why should this online relationship be any different? So be prepared for vulnerability.