Why do you write?

That's a question I often get, and I think that's a question that every blogger gets about... a million billion times in their blogging careers.

"Why did you start blogging?"

"Why do you write?"

"What about typing words on a computer is enthralling?"

--

I blog to make myself happy. Blogging and just writing in general is the biggest escape for me, other than listening to music and watching Netflix. It's an outlet. And I wouldn't be doing this if it wasn't for my therapist when I was in therapy three years ago when I was seventeen.

Three years ago (or right about there), I was not in a good place in my life in every which way. I was going a lot of physical harm to myself, and it was starting to show absolutely everywhere. Mentally, emotionally, etc. My parents wanted to help me, and since what they were attempting to do wasn't helping me at all whatsoever (no offense, it just wasn't the best stuff for me and I do appreciate them at least trying to help), they put me in therapy.

I hated it at first.

I hated all of it. I hated my therapist. I hated him so much. I didn't want to talk to him, and for the longest time (or so it seemed), I didn't. Eventually, I opened up to him and (spoiler alert), I actually still keep in touch with him a little. Easily one of the greatest people who has ever been in my life. He was stubborn, but it was because I was stubborn. He wasn't a "tough love" kind of guy, but he was still able to be stern to where I understood him. I trusted him. When I told him that I relapsed in something, he didn't yell at me. He was silent and let me cry because I felt like a failure. When I told him repeatedly that I was failure, he would tell me that I was a good person and that my actions don't make me a bad person.

One day I told him that I liked to write in journals. At the time, I had a lot of journals that I would write in daily for different things (my personal journal, one for food, etc) and that I've been journaling since I could hold a pencil and have a somewhat general understanding for writing. I told him how I would take my journal to school with me and write in it every chance I could get. My journal when I was seven was one of those super girly ones that actually had a lock that looked like this:

I never had an owl journal, but to give an idea of what my old school journals that Little Lily may have written in, there's a thought.

I explained to the therapist that I liked to write, but couldn't really put into accurate words how I felt about certain things sometimes. He suggested that I make a blog that I could write in and how maybe that would help. I was never a "blog" person, but I didn't want to poo poo his idea, so I tried.

And it pretty much all went up from there. That blog became my private blog that no one else reads. For years, literally, it was public (mostly because I didn't know how to make it private.. ha!), filled with things that -as I look back on it- really don't need to be seen. There's a lot of bad stuff on there, but there's also a lot of good stuff on there. Even though I do blog on this, that blog is my "main" writing blog. I go there to air out anything that I want to say that I want no one to see. And happily, I changed the privacy settings so no one can see it.

I blog, essentially, for making myself feel better. I strongly feel that if my therapist didn't suggest blogging, I wouldn't be typing up this post right now. Sort of weird to think about! But I also blog for amusement. Just for fun, I suppose. It makes me happy. I love writing. I love words. It's one of my favorite things (again, other than Netflix and music).

So when someone asks me why I blog, I just say "because it makes me happy".

xo

Owl journal picture is not mine.