Don't Send The Search Party

Don't be alarmed. I am still here. My Google reader continues to be my number one checked website, aside from Facebook. I just haven't been blogging.

A large part of it stems from a conversation I had with my dad about separation of personal and private life, which led to me making my previous blog completely private, and removing the link to this one from all social networking sites.

But then it just turned into me not writing- because I don't know how to write what I feel without being personal. I can't mask the emotions, whether good or bad, they are the reality of this stage of my life. A stage that is full of contradictions. A stage that is a measuring stick of where I am relative to others, or rather, where I am not. And of course, the ever present question of where I want to be. But it also is a stage that I share with millions of my peers, and by documenting all the highs and lows I've found that I am not alone in my confusion.

In my blogging absence I've done a lot of soul searching and examining new goals and directions, new friendships and old ones, too. In the last month I've teetered between being ready to pack everything up and go home, and the next instant I'm flooded with all the memories that chased me out of the Midwest. It's the conundrum of fearing the return to entrapment by way of a small town, but not being able to find my footing in the big city. I can envision perfectly the life I want, yet I am struggling to see it through.

Perfection, it's always been my problem. My expectations are always set high, perhaps too high so that failure is always within reach. I stopped writing because I feared people would see these flaws through my words, and I hid behind the intermittent comments of praise and positivity that I litter the blogosphere with.

While I gathered so much inspiration from all the creative, positive, and lovely bloggers that have quickly become a daily read; an anxiety began to settle-- I had so much to say, to write, and was ashamed that I couldn't emulate such beautiful, uplifting posts. At least not every day.

And so, maybe it's best to separate the personal from the private. But I've never been one do what people say is wise. I am known best for my stubbornness and defying common sense. But at the end of the day, what I write is not fodder for dismissal in a professional setting, nor is it worthy of scandalous chatter. It is life through my eyes, as a twenty-something. Sometimes it's positive, and other times the depression settles in. But it is real. And it is me.