The start of something simple

It began with dinner out.

I had looked forward to this date with my husband for awhile and was thoroughly enjoying just being with him, savouring our mushroom appetizer, and talking or being silent together.  We had just finished an interesting conversation on church and what it should look like, when he looked at me and said, “I think you should start blogging again.”

Rather taken aback at this out-of-the-blue statement, I didn’t say anything for a second, and then all the same objections began to flood my mind.  See, this idea of starting blogging again isn’t exactly a new one.  Aaron and I have talked about it several times over the past year and a half, but honestly, I’m just intimidated.  And the funny thing is, I’m intimidated by myself.

My old blog, “The Scribbles of a Sojourner”, for a long time was, as I put it in one post, “an up-to-date account of the doings of my life, interspersed with random musings and such”.  During certain seasons of that blog, the writing juices were flowing like crazy and I would blog several times a week, sometimes even churning out two or more posts a day.  And I loved it…I love writing and having an outlet to be able to share my writing with others was great.  But then, several years ago, that season ended.  I started Bible college and got busy with schoolwork and friends.  My poor little blog limped along as I would guiltily post once every month or so, random scribbles from a brain so full of Old Testament history and friends’ problems that not much was left to write about.  After two years of that, I moved to New Zealand and the blogging picked up a bit, especially when a certain dark-haired young man became a regular reader.   But when that young man began to court me, any spare time online was spent chatting or writing long e-mails.  Writing anything other than “I miss you so much” letters became rather impossible.

All that to say, quite a gap has grown between now and when I stopped blogging regularly.  More has happened in those few years than in any other time in my life and I am now a completely different person than that girl who scribbled away while she sojourned.  And so whenever the topic of starting back to blogging would come up, I would freeze…”I can’t do that.  There’s no way that I can condense and write about all that has happened in these past years and I obviously can’t blog anything new until I do that.”  My perfectionism reared its ugly head, shouting that there can’t be any unexplained gaps and it’ll just mess everything up, anything new must be explained, etc.  That may sound silly to many of you, but I’m guessing those of you who are also perfectionists can relate.

Aaron understands how I struggle with this, so after his statement at dinner, when I was sharing this again, he just said, “Well, then, start a new blog.”  But, but…okay.  What a brilliant idea!  Start again, with the slate wiped clean and the possibility of anything being written on it.  My husband knows me so well…”my new blog” began to instantly take shape in my head.

And as we were driving home from our lovely dinner, I asked him what I should call this new blog.  “Something simple” was his reply and even though I knew that he was saying it should be a simple title, that phrase struck me as perfect.  Living simply is something we strive for in our household, and also, seeing that title so often will be a needed reminder as I write.  This blog doesn’t have to be anything grand, not everything has to be explained…just write.  And so I will.