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Originally uploaded by FunCupcake.
Happy Bloggiversary to me! A year ago, I started a personal blog over on Blogger. And when I announced that I was starting a blog too, I included this excerpt as part of my very first post. “I often read blogs, focusing mostly on the adventures of fellow creative types, and have seen a variety of formats… daily musings, personal adventures woven in with work stuff, things i like, etc, etc… Which format would work for me? Most likely short musings with photos every now and again. My main concern is getting over what might be a natural tendency to make my postings “neutral” since they wouldn’t neccesarily be written specifically to someone…But then i decided, get on with it! I think blogs are interesting, stop being a wimp and waiting for some extra motivation to get this thing goin’! I get inspired from others, so why not post my own?!”
It’s funny to me now to see that I was actually worried about my blogging “format” and being too “neutral” because honestly, those concerns rarely cross my mind these days. So what have I learned from spending the past year publishing a diary/blog/website? And why do I continue to do it? While my motivation has become more focused there are many lessons I learned that I didn’t forsee. Last November when I started a blog, I was two months into a new office job in California, and yearning for an expressive outlet like I had in Portland with the art studio I used to share with other working artists. I felt like I was spending so much time doing something just to get that money, which is really the only reason I was working at that office job, and so little time doing anything that felt personally motivated. Within 6 months of this weekly writing I made the decision to quit my job and began my New York Adventure, which I thought warranted an official website. It was not easy, no part of it was, making the initial commitment that is. I remember driving to Goleta one morning and I was on the phone with the Registrar in NY at FIT, hands trembling, signing up for my first class. I remember faxing the registration to FIT in NY, realizing that there was no refund if I backed out. I remember listing the car for sale, and hoping, praying, someone would buy it. I remember leaving California with a few interested parties, but no offers, and thinking, how will I do this without that money? But it was just that leap that hurt so much, once I had landed on the other side, things went exceptionally well. Not having a plan for how things would work out, and taking a risk anyway, was one of the scariest things a planner like me could experience, but I knew things needed shaking up, and of course, it worked out. I definitely spend less time fretting about what I can’t control these days, your faith in life grows exponentially when you take risks, educated, informed, but sometimes just intuitive risks. I was wholly unprepared for the personal growth I experienced, not to mention the professional growth.
I spent the next 3 months chronicling my adventures, feeling so thankful so many people along the way had invested in my decision and wanting them to live vicariously through my adventures. I think ideally I hoped my website would be a showcase for all of my productive creative endeavors, and although it is that, to some degree, I mostly highlight the more social aspects of my life, but to me, especially right now in my life, living is very much a creative endeavor for me. Life in general is so inspiring, and the people in it are more amazing and complex and inspirational than anything contrived or made, at least to me. I realize that it doesn’t matter what it took to get me motivated to start being more accountable to my creative self, it’s just good that I have become just that; more accountable to my need to be expressive through travels, creative adventures, social excursions, and writing and photographing about my experiences and creations. Looking back I can see how much I have grown and changed.
People say to me all of the time, “I would keep a blog but I don’t have enough interesting stuff going on in my life.” I understand that to some degree, but let’s face it people, you have to write for yourself, not to keep up some society page! You don’t start swimming one day and quit because you’re not going to be in the Olympics next year! My simple answer is this; it’s the process that’s important, not each, individual part (or entry.) It’s the whole, the end product, which can be a year later, or 10! What if we judged everything on it’s momentary value? Like, geez my orchid looks bad this year, it needs so much babying, I should just throw it away! Anyway, I do realize it takes a lot for today’s contemporary human to put aside momentary gratification in order to do the right thing for the future. Our grandparents had no problem doing this, but for some reason, maybe our lives are too easy, to fast, and to disposable, that it’s just so hard for so many of us to do it! But I can say with full authority that you can never wait for the right time to do anything that is really important in your life. Because if you do, you’re really waiting for something external to soothe your fears of what life will be like when you start working on what it is you think you want! It seems much more appropriate to figure out what’s important to you right now, and try to fit some of that in every day in some way. Otherwise, time passes by and you get numb to the internal motivations that really make us do great things, those important things that make us feel, really feel!
This blog/website has served as a timeline to measure my life by. These days, I have achieved shortening the distance between what I want and think and feel, and what I do about it daily. For me, it meant really listening to the desires that come from within, and then gently, slowly as is sometimes necessary, starting to form my external world “around” these values. It’s not easy, and I’m no champion nor am I trying to be a spokeswoman of this! But I am so aware, and have this past year of entries to see where I started and where I’m at today. And the funny thing is, once you release preconceived notions of how you think things should be, what you need comes to you. You meet the people you’re supposed to, end up in the environment that you’re supposed to be in! Things feel like less of a struggle, because really, the struggle is usually within yourself with your own fears and doubts.
I check the statistics on my website from time to time, wondering if more than my Mom is reading! October showed the highest amount of unique visitors to date, 367 unique visitors checked in to funcupcake.com in October, but June yielded the highest amount of just straight hits, 12,318 hits with 6,272 pages viewed! And while most of the views come from the US, there are a fair amount from all over the world checking in, whether on accident or on purpose, who knows! Sometimes people are looking up Grommets, Williamsburg Brooklyn, or Cupcakes, and then they find this site. Some email me and say they just wanted to know about “beaded purses”, but they found this and have continued to read it! I do intend to keep up the site. Thanks for being a funcupcake with me! xoxo Sarah
