Days and Daze

Perhaps if I were younger, I would already have begun to blog. (Is "blog" a verb? Maybe it's only a noun, as in...."I would already have begun a 'blog'.") Don't get me wrong. I'm not "old". Well, I guess that would depend on your point of view. I'm 42, so I don't feel old. But, I guess if you are a teenager, or in your 20s--or 30s, for that matter--you might think that 42 is old. I am reminded of when I was a teenager, and everyone "of note" was older than I was. Professional athletes were older than I was. Olympic athletes were older than I was. It was so strange when I began to realize that I was now looking backwards in age at these people. When did professional football players get to be "kids"? So, apparently, creating and maintaing a blog is what the "young kids" do. Sure, I've heard of it...but I've missed the curve. I'm late to the party. I've never even kept a written journal. Oh, I've toyed with the idea off and on throughout my life, but other than a few pages at the beginning of the book, the pages all remained blank, and the journal was shoved into a drawer or a box. (It always seemed so pretentious or forced; so that even I hated to re-read it. [Are you supposed to re-read it? Or do you write it once, purge your soul, and move ahead--like therapy?]) But, maybe I'm far too "anal" to attempt something this public, this permanent. I assume it's permanent. Since this is my first entry I have no idea if you can go back and change things once it's posted, or it's forever there.....a part of history that can never be erased. Scary! I'm beginning to think that to blog, you must get over denial. You can certainly enact denial with a handwritten journal. Rip the pages out, throw them in the trash--or shred them, now that we're in the 21st century--and those thoughts never happened. ("What do you mean I didn't deal with that event in a mature and classy manner?! Of course I did! And you have no proof otherwise. [(And neither do I. Ha!"]) A handwritten journal is definitely for the sole purpose of the author. In fact, I'd go as far as to say that the writer doesn't intend for the contents ever to be seen...doesn't WANT the private thoughts ever to be discovered. But, that's not the case with a blog, is it? (Is it?) Is the first thing to be resolved whether you are writing for yourself or for others? Or does it matter? 'To blog, or not to blog?', that is the question.