It’s been a looooong time coming

It’s been a looooong time gone

*sang to the tune of Long Time Gone by The Civil Wars; stomp your feet, strum your banjo, and treat your ears*

[embedheight="300"width="150"]http://open.spotify.com/track/2teAi0sGMhX5nuJE5h6jbE

Well, guys, it finally happened. After years of people pushing me to start a blog, I went and did it. It feels a little bit nerve-wracking, a little bit exciting. A little bit good and a little bit right.

I set most of this up six months ago. One day, I up and decided I was going to go for it, bought all the tools needed to make this happen, hunkered down, and taught myself how to function on WordPress. Started from a blank slate and worked my way up. I had a vision (and still do) about how I wanted things to look and feel aesthetically. It wasn’t anything crazy (no Webkinz-World-freaking-village-empire-of-a-website-sized-goals), but for my time and resources right at that moment in my life, it simply wasn’t happening, and that threw me into a rut.

Recently, I heard this quote – and I can’t for the life of me figure out where I got it or who said it – that was along the lines of:

“It’s better to put something out there that’s 80% your best than to wait for it to be 100% and never share it at all.”

Honestly, I’m pretty good at that when it comes to my creativity. Perfectionism has never been an issue for me, for better or worse. I don’t expect myself to be perfect, I don’t pretend that I am, and I don’t expect it of other people. We all fall short from time to time, and I’m okay with that. So why was my website any different? Why was I holding it to different standards? Why beat myself up for not being able to speed through the coding inevitably involved with setting up a website, when I had zero previous experience? Why was I feeling so defeated over the quality size-wise of my pictures, when it’s seriously the best my camera is capable of doing?

I wasn’t okay with putting it out in the world as it was, but I vowed to come up with a plan B.

Spoiler alert: I did not.

No. I shut my laptop that fateful day six months ago, flipped the switch in my brain to the off position on the whole thing, and abandoned the project.

Until a few days ago, totally out of the blue, I felt it was time to finish it.

It wasn’t as bad as I remembered. It may not be the most professional looking blog that ever was, but it’s not the worst either. It’s workable. I much prefer it to the pre-made, uncustomizable templates on the simpler blogging sites. There has been so much trial and error, frantic Google searching, patience, details, and love that has gone into this thing, I can’t help but be kinda fond of it. I know everything I’ve put into it, and I’m proud of myself for that.

I know now, and I suppose I knew even then, that creating the website was never the real hurdle. It goes deeper than that. It always does, right?

You see, with Instagram – my social media of choice – I feel less pressured to deliver something worthwhile. People are going to be there anyway, whether I’m there or not. And although I by no means consider myself a photographer, there’s always the photos to fall back on. There’s the casual mindset of, “I’m going to share this picture because I want to share this picture, but hey, while you’re here, let me tell you about this thing I’ve been thinking about.”

With a blog, it’s different. You have to take time out of your busy schedule, drop what you’re doing, come specifically to this designated space, just to look at whatever it is I’m rambling about.

We left the big city, with flashing lights and speeding cars. Honking horns and flocks of pigeons and the homeless mingling on every sidewalk – the unwanted looking for the unwanted. I was sitting on a picturesque park bench, calling out to all passing by, inviting them to stay just a moment. Imagining a small town in the center of millions of people doing their own thing, rushing by with their own lives to their own park benches. A foot half in is enough, and a cheerful, over-the-shoulder “good morning” is a pearl to add to a necklace.

It’s quiet here in the woods, around a fire, shoulder to shoulder. This is my wilderness, and you’re here because you accepted my invitation. This is the small town for real. We really are a community here, and one person who puts on their hiking boots to come sit with me is worth a hundred city-folk.

The thing is, I’m just a girl trying to figure out how to handle being alive. I don’t have answers. Heck, what I have is a million questions. There’s nothing I have to offer you, no promises, no magic. I feel like I need to be reading YOUR blog, not vice-versa.

I could fail at this. Badly.

And it’s easier to not even try than it is to fall on my face.

But in the end, I could become infected with frostbite hidden way back in my cold, dark cave almost just as easily as I could give myself a black eye outside of it.

I can show up for life, or I can not. That’s a crossroad I have a harder time deciding on than maybe most folks. I like playing the role of both Mother Gothel and Rapunzel.

But I have to learn that being imperfectly present is better than not being present at all. I know that. I’m trying.

I don’t know the first thing about blogging. There are very few I keep up with, and my presence in the blogging community is literally non-existent. I don’t know how often I’m going to post; start a daily project, follow a weekly schedule, post on a whim. I don’t know what I’m going to tell you about. Anything and everything, I suppose – the exact advice people would advise against when starting a blog. Ha.

I don’t know. We’ll see how it goes. What happens.

Hey, if you came out here to read this, thank you. Thank you for caring. There are a million other things you could be doing or reading, and the fact that you chose me is neat. When I say it means a lot, I mean it with everything I’ve got.

Thank you. Thank you. Thank you.

I’d be honored if you accompany me on this journey of… what? I don’t know yet. But I really hope you’ll be beside me when we find out.

xo Kaleigh