uncork me now!

Am I the only one who has this grating fear that one day I'm going to log onto my blog and realize that it's been randomly deleted? Call me crazy, but I'm somehow not totally confident in technology and its reliability. I never foresaw these feelings when I started blogging - such attachment, such vulnerability. Yet as we've grown closer, the blog and I, we've formed a bond that is unlike any other. What were to happen if it was suddenly gone one day?

So today I printed up my ENTIRE BLOG.

Um, it was really big. I mentioned recently that I had surpassed the 100 post mark, and well, most posts were more than one page long. Sigh. Hey, at least I've got it in paper now. It just means I'm going to have to print every post I enter from now on in. Am I ridiculous?

I really don't think so.

I love reading back on my thoughts about Plava and Japan and my family. I love the fact that I'll have this as a memory-tool for years to come. I love that Plava may one day sit down and read through them and catch a real glimpse of what her mom was like at 27 and what she went through in the first year of motherhood.

Ryan jokingly said to me the other day, "I think you should set a quota - one post a day." It was somewhat shocking that I felt like one post wasn't enough, but that aside, I refused to even toy with the idea. I love writing! I don't profess to be a great writer in any way, but I just really really enjoy getting my thoughts out and knowing that at least a few people are finding it amusing. I laughed when I explained to Ryan that it's nice to have a place where I can actually let out all my brain-garble without boring him to death. He's a good man, but I'm a talker when it comes to my moment-to-moment experiences. Ryan comes home at the end of the day and when I ask him how work was, he says, "It was okay." Unsatisfied, I ask him if there was anything interesting that happened, a funny conversation, a frustrating encounter with someone, a task that was particularly difficult. Nothing usually comes of my attempts. We laugh sometimes about the fact that I hardly know what he does at work all day, though when we have these laughs he admits that he really should talk more, and often he'll explain some interesting part of his job to me that I didn't know about.

And then there's me. I've learned over the years that Ryan really needs a few minutes to wind down upon entering the house after work, and that I should wait a while before I verbally mall him with my stories of little things that Plava did, a conversation I had with a friend, and the fact that I'm feeling rather PMSish today. I'm so thankful that I have a husband that doesn't roll his eyes and say, "yes dear." (okay, I wouldn't have married that guy, but anyway...) He's very gracious with all my talk, and has even said on more than a few occasions, "Keep talking. I may not respond because I'm tired, but I like to hear you chatter to me." In a quirky way, it kind of made me feel special, and so I'd go to town.

But talking, or writing for that matter, it's an important thing for me. I've certainly been through times in my life when I've felt like someone had put a cork in my bottle and I was brimming up with things to say and feeling like I might explode.

The blog really relieves that need.

So on I write, not fantastically, not always grammatically correct, and not for any selfish attention-seeking motive, but just because it feels so dang wonderful.