Why'd It Take Me So Long?

I've just had a realization: Although I love to write (and in some form, have been doing it for a living for close to seven years), I don't enjoy writing this blog. I see it as a chore, a means to an end. Why?

When I started this blog, it was one of several vehicles to promote disCARDS, my craft business. I know that writing about personal subject matter is more appealing and interesting than writing about crafts day in and day out, but I wasn't so sure I wanted to get personal.

This blog has chugged along in fits and starts while I tried to decide what my focus is, and if this blog even needs a focus. My life has changed, but I struggled against it, trying to keep this a constant. It's named after disCARDS after all -- how much other stuff can I write about? And more importantly: Who cares?

Earlier this month, I turned 30. Though this age feels no different than 29 (or 28, or 27, or 26...) in a lot of ways, in some ways it feels like a turning point. I feel like I'm at a pivotal stage where my life could go so many ways, and it's just up to me to flip to the next page, like a Choose Your Own Adventure book. I'm struggling to balance what People (capital P intentional) expect of me and what I expect of myself -- do I throw myself into my career and climb the ever-looming ladder of "success" (eh, probably not), focus more intently on crafting, find a new hobby (roller derby, perhaps?), start a family? And how do I reconcile what I choose with who I've been to this point and what society, family, and friends expect of a (relatively) smart, mature, responsible 30-year-old woman?

This is the stuff that's on my mind these days. And this is a hell of a lot more interesting to me than once-in-a-blue-moon updates about what's stocked in my Etsy shop. Finally, I want to write again. Yes, I'll write about crafts once in a while -- they are part of my life. But so are my relationships with friends, family, and my husband; my rediscovered love of roller-skating (and my wishy-washy, on-again/off-again desire to try out for roller derby); my interest in home design/decorating, cooking, thrift-shopping, and good beer. As I move forward in "adult" life, I wrestle with what I should be and what I want to be, and though I'll continue being a responsible woman who goes to work and gets things done, I'll always love other stuff -- and I'll always want to share that with likeminded people. Ever since I was a teenager, I've been interested in identity (of course, everyone is as a teenager!) and even though I've always known that a person is so much more than a patchwork of interests, I've always held a fascination with the ways the things we like define us in some way -- and connect us to the people who are like us.

So that's what this blog will be about.