Phases, Stages.

Happy Tuesday, everyone. You know what I was just thinking about? Tattoo Tuesdays! Were any of you fans of that feature? I have no plans to bring it back- it definitely ran its course- but I was thinking about it, and blogging, and all of the different stages and phases blogs go through, because when you write a personal blog, everything grows right along with you.

When I started blogging I had just made the switch from Livejournal, and I still kept a similar voice, although it wasn't as raw as what I wrote in my LJ. My Livejournal was a place I shared everything- I sometimes wrote 3 or 4 entries a day- but blogging felt a little different. I didn't have any (or many) readers when I started Sometimes Sweet so I would just go on and on, with no thought that anyone else may be reading. It's so interesting for me to look back at my archives. I half cringe and half marvel at my own silly naivety, but like I've said many times before, it's a beautiful thing to be young and not to know what's just around the corner...or what the hell you're even doing. Time went on and more people found themselves here reading my words, and I think I went through what a lot of bloggers do as I learned what I did and didn't want to share in this space. I figured out where I wanted to go with this blog and stumbled over lots of dos and don'ts, like and dislikes, all trial and error, and if you're growing and changing, I don't think that ever stops.

It's really a crazy thing to be able to look back at the past fourteen years of my life, cataloged and documented in one place or another. It's a weird little gift, wrapped up in an online package. We all change so much over the course of ONE year, that being able to just choose any day over the past FOURTEEN and see what I was doing, thinking, hoping, is wild. And it reminds me to focus on the real stuff, my days, photos of my family and things that are important to me, because in 13 more years it would be a real shame to look back and see so many years of a great story that kind of fizzles off into a haze of filler posts.

So this is a reminder for me, and maybe you, to keep it real. Keep writing and sharing and trying to capture all of the little bits you might someday forget, and to keep building a place you'll someday come back to and laugh and smile and think how wild it is, to have it all right here.