Melissa, from themelodramatic.net wrote a post about her sister-in-laws new experience with blogging. Her sister in law had written a post about it, about her experience with blogging. Why people do it, and the kind of people that do. I read that post, and I understood what she was trying to say. And then I wrote a comment that might as well have been a novel with it’s own ISBN or something.

Worse, days after I wrote that comment, I was still thinking about it. About why I blogged, why I wrote a novel to explain that for me, the blogosphere wasn’t filled with weird creepy people, or airheads that just want to talk about their diets or broken toes. That the blogosphere wasn’t filled with complete strangers. I thought about how I didn’t see myself as the person she’d described as a ‘blogger’. I thought about the bloggers I knew and how I didn’t see them in that cast either.

I thought about the people that I knew that blogged, and that were part of that scene, and about the people I knew that weren’t.

I thought about how The Ex hated that I blogged. He hated that after we broke up I was open to the entire world how I felt about things. How I felt about what happened between us. And he got shitty and said I was too open with our relationship. I think that he’d forgotten that for the whole three years we were together I didn’t blog openly about us. He was very rarely mentioned on rarg. And when we broke up? I blogged what I was feeling, openly, honestly. That’s not to say that I was nasty, and filled my blog with explicit hate posts or whatever. I never let the dirty details out. I was looking for support from the blogosphere, not starting a hate campaign. I remember in one of our discussions I tried to explain the difference, and he interrupted with “But this what you DO! This is WHO YOU ARE!”

And I was a little dumbfounded. Blogging is what I do? Blogging is who I am?

I held my tongue, at the time. But what I wanted to do was shake my head, and point out that he didn’t understand. And I think that alot of people don’t understand why people blog. Why casting a person into the ‘blogger’ sterotype, as if that is all they are, all they do, isn’t quite how it goes.

I do blog. And as such, I am a blogger. But I am so much more than that. A multi-faceted person of which blogging is only one side.

And I thought about why I do it.

I blog because I’d like a record of my life as I’m living it, to remember what I was doing, what I was feeling, who I was. I blog to better understand what I’m feeling, what I know, what I think, to type it out and to clarify. I blog to share what I know, and what I’ve learnt. I blog because I want to connect with people, and the blogosphere is filled with amazing, amazing people to connect with.

People who care, and can help. People who cheer you on and offer encouragement and commiseration when you’re down. Is a friendship through comments, tweets and emails any less a friendship than one you might have in real life? I don’t think so. I got an email from Sarah from becomingsarah.com the other day. An email that made me cry and feel all warm and fuzzy and understood all the same time. I’ve exchanged emails and tweets and messages with JJ, and Awmber and all sorts of lovely people who I know, are just an email away. People I haven’t met, people I haven’t spoken to in real life. People who care, just the same.

I think, that without a life outside of blogging, without the real-life friends I have and the adventures I go on and the decisions I make, I wouldn’t have anything to blog about. I wouldn’t have the blogger friends that I do, and I wouldn’t have anything to connect with or share. I think it’s pretty safe to say that while I blog, blogging is not my life. It’s only a segment.

Donald Millar wrote a book, called A Million Miles in A Thousand Years. In short, it’s about how he attempts to edit down his life to adapt it to a screenplay, and how he ends up reinventing himself to capture the viewers attention.

In the first chapter he says:

“The saddest thing about life is you don’t remember the half of it. You don’t even remember half of half of it. Not even a tiny percentage, if you want to know the truth. I’ve got this friend Bob who writes down everything he remembers. If he remembers dropping an ice cream cone on his lap when he was seven, he’ll write it down. The last time I had talked to Bob, he had written more than five hundred pages of memories. He said he captures memories because if he forgets them, it’s as though they didn’t happen, it’s as though he hadn’t lived the parts he doesn’t remember.”

I thought it was simple. Write it down. Remember the moments that make life worth living.

And reading back through my blog, I remember what I’ve done. Where I’ve been. The adventures I’ve been on. I remember the time I got hit by another car, and decided to start wearing seatbelts. I remember my first trip to Melbourne to visit my bestie, and how we had a brilliant girls weekend. I remember when The Square was new, when I patted a Rhino, and when I played with fire. I remember Quinns first day at daycare, and the day I quit the foul job I had at ICONZ. I remember the anxiety I had at throwing my best friend a hens party, but how it turned out brilliantly. I remember the day I got my sternum peirced, I remember feeding the wild kits, and the day I stopped feeding them. I remember my best friends wedding, loosing friends, gaining friends, and a million, billion other small moments.

I remember all the many small moments I might have already forgotten. I think, if for nothing else, I blog to remember the moments that have made up my life, made me who I am.

If you blog, why do you do it?