What do these three links have in common?

They light up my fingers and my brain, at the same time, and they make me go, "OK, write, now."

Yes, in bold.

I've been thinking a lot lately about ... other ways to say, "I've been thinking a lot lately about..." Any tips?

Haha, but seriously, what I was going to say there was, I've been thinking a lot lately about blogging, and about getting back to what brought me joy with the medium, wayyyy back in 2002 when I first started putting my thoughts out into the interwebs.

In the meantime, so much has happened.

I mean, I wrote my way somewhere, through thirteen years of living. For three of those years I wrote my way through a question, "What if more people thought positively about Cape Breton?" I shared parts of my life and shared parts of others' lives. There's a real bulk to all of that, that I can look back and really see.

And then, in December of 2014, when I decided to stop writing Dream Big Cape Breton, I turned a corner in the writing, in the voice I used to put myself out there in world. And I stopped, for a bit. I felt like I had reached a wall, and couldn't go forward yet, because I knew I wanted to change things up, but I didn't know what that would look like. So I just kinda... stopped. And started, and stopped. I had just moved into a new home but hadn't put anything up on the walls yet, or moved in furniture, or done much besides sit and stare out the window. Because I was scared. I felt like "people" were watching and waiting, to judge.

Now I see. After just one week of posting daily, about whatever I want.

I see that I want to keep writing my way along. It's a slightly different voice, than it was before. But it's still my voice. In fact, it's more my voice, now, than it was before. If that's a thing. Being more or less a voice.

So my question for myself is, what brought me joy back in 2002?

Words? Truth? Telling stories?

Truth be told, I'm not overly SURE what it is exactly about blogging that brings me joy, I just know that there is this feeling I get when I am writing. When my fingers are tapping away at the keys. It's a mix of "I'm in the driver's seat here!" and "Wheeeeeee!!! I'm just along for the ride" and "Hmmm, what's around this corner?" and "What time is it anyway? I'm not even paying attention." It's a good feeling. It's exhilarating.

And I know that when I let the voices in my head start to go on about "Well, who is really reading this blog? What do they want to hear about? What should you write about?" and worry about all of it, that's when the writing dries up. That's when the joy dries up.

Erin Loechner writes in her amazing post, "why I blog":

It’s selfish, perhaps. But this year, something shifted. I began blogging for me again. To connect with myself, my own voice, my own story. To document this time of growth and learning and perspective. To think deeply about the legacy I want to leave my daughter and to allow myself the grace to grow into that new version of myself – one that isn’t measured by pageviews and valued by comments. One that is littered with intention and thought and gentleness with words. One that is slowly realizing she was made fearfully and wonderfully, created for a purpose.

One that is finally understanding the importance of telling your truest story.

"One that is littered with intention and thought and gentleness with words."

I love that.

And I love blogging.

And that is all I need to know, right now, and always.

Picture at the top of the post is from this post by me, on my old blog, from February 2010.