A Post About A Post



As you might have heard,
I wrote a post a couple weeks ago about equality. Equality between the genders specifically. It was actually a post that woke me up in the middle of the night, made me sit at the computer, captivated me until it was all written and let me sleep in the next day. It was an intense relationship, that post and me.

And it was just getting started.

Due to the reaction I received from readers, I continued to date that post. It regularly woke me up in the middle of the night. It was with me first thing in the morning. I read reactions from people who agreed with me and I contemplated ideas that differed from mine. But for some reason, I couldn't write that post off.

I decided to do some research. Not because I doubted how I felt when I wrote that post, but because I was terribly ignorant of how passionately it would be received--even in my own heart. And as a blogger (one who gets paid to write, especially) I do feel a certain responsibility to not only write a post, but see it all the way through until it feels right (which is why I will write post-edits many times).

(I am also learning that a difference between being a writer and a blogger is instantaneous, and bountiful feedback. When I write to be published I work with one editor. But with blogging, there are hundreds of editors. So much for my idea that blogging would save me from the dreaded second draft, or worse, the fire-breathing editor.) (P.s. I love my editor.) (P.p.s. I appreciate your taking time to comment, Dear Reader, as long as you do not--as I have said this before--call me fat in my third trimester.)

But this post . . . this post came with it intensity I haven't felt before. And I wondered if I could see it through. Ideas are powerful especially when they are projected into a vast unknown audience. For the first time I was taking my blog really seriously. Heaven help me, I WAS FEELING RESPONSIBLE.

Many times in the course of writing this blog have I changed my mind about what I've written. I mean, I started out as an infertile Vegan and have become a fertile Meat Eater--just to name one HUGE transformation. But this post in question wasn't asking me to change my mind, this post was asking me to dig deeper.

So I did.

I asked trusted family members (including my own wise mother). I emailed with strangers (one particularly interesting one in Idaho). I studied scriptures. I had conversations with a therapist. I picked Chup's brain until it was raw. I read, a lot. I prayed. Lo, I even went to my nearest Mormon temple and mediated in one of our most holiest of places.

I told you, I got serious.

And I couldn't respond to that post, or to the responses of that post, with dignity and confidence until I knew in my heart I was ready. I respect those people who care enough to click on my blog to give them the best part of me--which once was heavily salted with pictures of me in my pink skirt--to now, which is my quest for self-examination as my life gets more complicated.

Funny how the term "enjoy it" has changed for me.

Anyway, the past week The Post (now a personable noun in my life) has been waking me up in the earliest of morning hours, telling me it is time to write down what I have learned. Due to a pregnancy-related disability to "hop out of bed" I gave myself until Thursday night to actually blog on this now-passionate subject.

So tomorrow night it is. And in the end, I have to know that I am going to write this for myself. Even if it interests no other person, I can say it was worth the adventure. Also, thanks to those who helped me along the way, both the upfront readers (agreed, disagreed) and the ones behind the scenes.

And then I hope to tuck The Post back into my archives for safe keeping. It has been healthy-life-changing relationship, and it will be time to move on to the next.

Consider yourself warned. At least.



Today on dear c jane:
Jo Totes!




Today on c jane's Guide to Provo:
Win a Jo Tote!

Popular Posts