My First Blog & How It Came to Be

"Why don't you try blogging?" my physician asked. "Look at it as a healthy, creative way to relieve stress, or you could try Pilates?"  

Pilates? Blog? I had never blogged before. Ridiculous, I said to myself as I reluctantly handed over my $35 co-payment. Did I really just pay for this recommendation? While pondering this latest advice from my favorite family physician, what appeared to me to be even more ridiculous  was the thought of me doing Pilates or any other form of purposeful exercise. Did she not know me by now? She was right though, I did need an outlet for all the curves that life was continually throwing my way, but blogging??

What do I know about blogging? Not much! However, I certainly know about keeping a journal. I have kept a journal most of my life so I can't  imagine that blogging is really any different? As a young girl of 8, 9 and 10, I kept my journal in a spiral bound notebook.  I could carry it from class to class and look like I was taking the most detailed notes. I wrote about any and everything in those journals. I wrote about all of  my thoughts, dreams and aspirations. What would high school be like? Did David G. like me as much as I liked him? Was I pretty? Would I be successful? Would I get married?  I also wrote about the darker side of my life, the things no child should ever go through.  Will mom be drunk when I get home? Why does she hate me so much? Will the bruises show during P.E. class? Does my mother love me? As an adopted child it was hard to understand why someone would adopt me yet not want nor love me. Many of my journal entries were questions about my own biological mother and about who I really was.

I don't know how I would have survived my childhood without my journals. They were my safe place where I could scream as loud as I wanted and I could say whatever I wanted and be who I thought I was. In my journal I would create and become this beautiful, lost Italian girl trying to find her way back to Italy.  In my journal I could share feelings of grief, loss and hopelessness just as I could share those of  happiness and hope. 

 When I read those journal pages from my childhood my heart aches for that little girl, that Robin and when I read those pages about falling in love, the births of my three children or the obstacles I have overcome, I rejoice with that Robin. I guess my physician was right after all. It was during those times of pouring out my heart on those tattered pages that a healing was slowly taking place and everyday life seemed a little easier to deal with.  

Over the years I have come to the realization that all of the good times and the bad were just a part of the journey, my journey. So, blogging it is. Time to write a new chapter!