a little bit of anarchy, but not the hurtin’ kind

I’ve tried to keep a blog before. I’ve started, stopped, started again, forgotten about it, procrastinated, deleted, tried again … I’m not always very good at following through. Why? Partly, it’s because I get scared. What do I have to say that seven hundred other people aren’t already out there saying? Does anyone else care what I have to say? I get hung up on the idea of having a theme, having one particular reason to blog. I’m a random person by nature – I flit from one thought to another without a pause in between. But in blogging, you’re told that’s a liability; people want to read someone with focus! Someone dedicated enough to one topic that they become an expert!

That person is not me. So, I fell away from blog after blog. What was the point?

But, a few days ago, I read Gwen Bell’s post about Exuberant Imperfection, and it resonated with me. I tend to worry about being perfect when I’m writing, no matter what form it is. Writing has always come easily to me; getting myself to concentrate on practicing so I can get better, well, that’s a different story. I’m slowly teaching myself to show up to the page with my fiction. If I want to write blog posts, why not treat it the same way? It’s all writing. Two different audiences, two different styles of writing, but the underlying principle is the same. Start writing, try different things … eventually, I’ll get better at it!

I suck at being bad at things. I hate looking stupid, and doing something badly always makes me feel like someone out there is going to laugh at me. I’m trying to get over that, because avoiding new experiences makes for a boring life! I’ve got a handful of things that, when I look back at my past, I say “damn, I wish I’d just gone for that.” My goal for the rest of my 30s is to never have to say that again. Actually, I have a whole list of things that I want to try in the next few years. Maybe that’s the theme of this blog – Jaime’s journey to do the shit that scares her. Not much of a tag line, but hey, it’ll do in a pinch.

… and hey, I’ve had this domain name for several years now, but it matches that desire, doesn’t it? If you’re not familiar, my site is named after the Great Big Sea song “Consequence Free.” I’ve always wanted to call that song my theme song, but the truth is that I’ve always been too scared for it to really be true. Let’s try to change that, shall we?

Wouldn’t it be great if the band just never ended
We could stay out late and we would never hear last call
We wouldn’t need to worry about approval or permission, we could
Slip off the edge and never worry about the fall…

So, here we go, a blog. I have a tentative posting schedule and a desire. Who knows where it will lead me?