Seeking Imperfection

I realized recently that I don't think I know how to keep a journal.

This is funny if you were to know that I have kept an online journal in one way, shape or form for about eight years now. I started one on a wedding board, where the journal was about planning my wedding. I met several friends through that board, and when the board closed the journal section, we bounced around the web together, and have been chatting since.

The problem is that I know that I like to read other people's journals - and now their blogs - better than I like to write in my own. The reason is that I usually think that other people's lives are more interesting than mine. I often feel that when I am "journaling" I have to "entertain." I often will post in other people's journals but won't update mine, because I don't have an entertaining post. I suppose that isn't really the point of journaling.

Seeing as I am great at analyzing a subject to death, I did a little research this morning about "how to keep a journal." The articles I read suggested, mainly just writing or typing about whatever. It seems so simple and like a "Duh" kind of thing, so why is it so hard for me? Why do I think all of my posts have to be Pulitzer Prize winning material?

I spoke to Roland about this dilemma last night, and he said that a blog is meant to entertain. So then I got worried and figured I wasn't doing it "right," and that I wasn't being entertaining. I told him I was upset because I wasn't getting very many comments, so I must be doing something wrong. His response? "Why do you care?"

Why do I care? I don't know. It must be rooted to the need I've had my entire life to have people like me. I don't care who they are, or if I like them or not, but for some reason I want everyone I've ever met to like me. "Oh Michelle? She's so nice, isn't she? She's such a sweetheart..." etc, etc. I know that this possibly makes me sound quite vain, but it really is something that I've struggled with my whole life. I hold myself to impossibly high standards - standards I would never hold anyone else to, and then I get mad at myself when I can't reach them.

I am going to try and loosen up on myself, and blog just for myself. Although I do hope to make some bloggy friends and hope that you all enjoy what I write...I am going to try to learn to write for me as well. Wish me luck.