Ninja blogger

That’s me. Ninja blogging. Because I’m being kind of sneaky, and I’m blogging again without really telling anyone about it.

I’ve been thinking lately about my motives for certain activities. Why I post things on Facebook, why I started a blog in the first place, why I am re-starting it after several years of virtual silence. Why I want people to read my stuff and see my pictures. Part of it is that I really want community, but as an introvert, I find the platform the internet offers to be easier to manage than real life, sometimes. It’s also just fun to write. I like seeing it all in one place, illustrated with pretty pictures, a shiny package of my life. That’s what it used to be, at least, and I spent some time recently reading through the years of posts I have archived. It was never my intention to present such a pretty package to the world, because my life is messy and messed up, just like everyone else’s. In my defense, I did start blogging as a way to celebrate the good things in my life during a time when I was struggling to find joy. And I did find it, once I looked. I found beauty and friendship and comfort and contentment. I found many good things. It was only natural that a blogging looking for this stuff would end up pretty and shiny.

The title of my blog, Any Similar Revival, is important to me. It speaks of rebirth and renewal, and I am feeling lots of renewal lately. I’ve been pitching lots of clutter—physical mess AND mental mess. Emotional baggage, outdated paradigms, outgrown ideas. It feels good to lighten up, to refocus. I told my dad not to get me any stuff for Christmas because I’ve been leaning towards minimalism, and he laughed at me and told me that anyone who has as many books as I do could never be a minimalist. I see why he thinks so, but he doesn’t really know what I mean when I say minimalism. I don’t mean that I am getting rid of All the Things. Just the things that hinder. And, in fact, he would be surprised to see the number of books that have made their way out of my house lately.

So this is kind of a rambling post. I’m not sure where I’m heading, but that’s where I’m going. I feel a change coming, and I’m excited for it.

In the meantime, shhh. I like sneaking around.