It's been five years!

August 11, 2009 

This is the date when I published my first blog post (here) five years ago.  I am, by nature, fairly shy and self-depreciating - not at all confident in my own writing abilities – so hitting that “publish” button took so much courage.   

I agonized for weeks over whether or not to jump into the blogging world that I had discovered through Twitter.  I “met” so many great people there, many of whom I am still in touch with, and discovered the world of blogging through them.   Even after all of my agonizing, I still held my breath when I sent that first post into cyberspace.  Amazingly enough, the universe didn’t explode when my words went out. 

I love this form of expression where regular people like me can talk about life, love, family, current events and engage with each other.  I have witnessed people laughing together, crying together and showing so much support for one another.  Yes, there is the occasional troll who loves nothing better than to throw some nastiness around but the good people far outnumber them.   So far (knock on wood) I’ve been pretty lucky that I haven’t had any troll experiences here. 

It is in this community where I have learned a lot about myself.  I really do have a lot to say and there are others who feel same as I do.  I am not alone.  I have also learned not to jump to judgment.  We all have our own reality and are doing what we feel is best for our own families.  I now think twice (sometimes three times) before I say that somebody else is wrong and, more often than not, give the benefit of the doubt. 

I do need to work on consistency though.  I post anywhere from one to three times in a week; basically whenever the mood strikes or when I find a prompt from a link-up that hits me the right way.  Ideally, I’d like to post at least twice a week but, when I try to force it, my brain goes completely blank and I can’t come up with anything interesting.   I seem to be a bit of a free spirit, going with the flow, when it comes to blogging.  When I stop to think about it, I suppose that’s not really such a bad thing.   

My audience has grown over the last five years but is still pretty small compared to many of the blogs that I visit.  I’m really okay with that since the thought of hundreds or (gasp!) thousands of people reading my words makes me hyperventilate a bit.  Talk about pressure!  I have huge respect for the Scary Mommy’s and The Blogesses of the blogging community for being able to put themselves “out there” for their vast audiences the way that they do.  My confidence has grown but I still have a long way to go…. 

For those of you who come by at least somewhat regularly, you may have noticed that I recently started signing off my posts as "Kathy" instead of "Kat".  This was explained in my last post

"In the beginning I felt a need for privacy and creating an "online name" seemed fitting but, these days, it's not feeling authentic so I've started signing off my posts with Kathy instead"

I've made the decision to take that one step further and actually change my blog name to use my full name now as well.  It just feels more "me", more authentic.

I don’t know where I’ll be in another five years but I do know that I would like to be here celebrating my ten year blogging anniversary with you, my bloggy friends. 

Kathy