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My experience with blogging is weird so far. It starts kind of abruptly, after booking my first roundtrip flight to England with my husband, shortly after which I begin to feel a bit overwhelmed. As much as we budget and save for travel each year, we are a bit depleted after travelling to Maui in December 2017. We really aren’t at a point where we can comfortably purchase an expensive flight just yet. Somehow, however, thoughts of travelling are all that occupy my mind, and it’s like buying those flights somehow opens the floodgates in my head, and this passion comes bursting out. It doesn’t help that about a week later I receive a save the date for a friend’s wedding in France. Suddenly my mind starts going a mile a minute thinking of all the travel possibilities for me and my husband, and how are we going to fit them all in before kids?!! My travel bucket list is suddenly growing, and I am imagining in my head different travel scenarios, and how we are going to budget for them and allocate our time off from work for each one.
I realize after a week of staying up late at night obsessing over travel that I need an outlet for this. I need to write, to plan, to budget, but maybe not just for myself. Maybe this is something I can share with others, and maybe I can put some passion and inspiration out into the universe. I have long used the internet to inspire myself and get ideas for my own travels, but maybe I can also contribute to this medium of information that has already given so much to me.
That being said, suddenly I am on Google researching how to start a blog. I pick a domain name – okay, now what? The next thing I do is figure out how to have a website, and find out I need web hosting. Free or paid, shared hosting or self-hosted? I decide I’m too much of a control freak, so I choose the self-hosted route, and I choose Bluehost and WordPress after reading too many confusing articles. Then I find out that I need a theme for my blog – yet again another thing that can be free or purchased! I’m worried about having a similar blog theme to another person, so I choose to purchase a theme. I find the one I want and quickly download it and install it on my blog. I do not read any directions, which leads me to not download the demo, and to try to build the whole thing from scratch. I am not technologically literate and know ZERO about coding or building a website, so needless to say I spend a week frustratingly trying to make my blog look like something, and get it to work the way I want it to. After seven days of pulling my hair out and calling tech support, I throw in the towel, restore my blog to its original settings, and start again. This time I watch tutorials on Youtube, and I start by installing the demo. I slowly personalize the demo into what I want it to look like. I am careful and calculated about this, and to be honest, it’s something I’m still working on.
After months of happily being Instagram free, I rejoin the site, therefore reclogging my brain-space with the obsession over likes and follows. I have to reteach myself restraint, but it’s only been two weeks so I know I will find the right balance. Now to the scary part – I actually need to start writing, and I’ve kind of been putting it off. I honestly think I’ve been distracting myself subconsciously because, to be honest, putting yourself out there is quite unsettling! Maybe these words won’t get read at all, which might be a bit of a relief to think about. However, what if they do get read? What if they aren’t received well by the world? What if it’s too boring, or I’m unqualified to write a blog and people can see right through me? It’s time for me to decide that I don’t care. This tiny corner of the internet is mine to make and mold, and make and mold it I shall! The only thing left to do is write, and I think it’s about time to do the thing.
