Tongue Tied

I've been writing on and off for as long as I can remember, but it was only really when I first started writing my blog over on myspace, around four years ago, that I began to share some of my writing with other people. In its heyday there was such a good feel to myspace - in total my blog was viewed over 44500 times, and had over 4000 comments - which makes the figures for this current blog seem rather feeble in comparison!

I'm so grateful to all the friends I had on myspace, and to those who subscribed to my blog, and I'm so pleased to still be in contact with a few of you via Facebook now. The comments, feedback, praise and encouragement really gave me the confidence and enthusiasm to keep writing (and taking photos), and my creative juices kept on flowing - it was such an inspiring and creative time! In particular some of the names that spring to mind are Jim, Barbara, David, Kathleen, Laine, Kate, Sarah, Gary, Rachel, Mark, Jo, Roger, Maria, Angie, 'Tiara', Wendy, 'Poetic', and there were more... Even though I haven't actually met most of these people in the flesh, through our writing and sharing of life experiences we built up a closeness, intimacy and degree of closeknit friendship that isn't always easy to achieve in the 'real world' outside of the computer screen.

Anyway, the reason for this nostalgic ramble is because there are ripples of unease and discontent rumbling through the world of myspace bloggers right now. Apparently things are a-changing on myspace, and not for the better as far as blogs are concerned. At first I felt a wee bit smug, thinking 'Well I stopped blogging there a long time ago, so I'm ok...' But then a couple of hours later I thought 'Hmm - I'd better check that my blog is still there - even though I don't update it anymore, I still like to check on it from time to time...'

I was dismayed to find that comments have been deleted. Later I started thinking 'What if they delete the actual blogs next??' ... This is really panicking me, because a lot of my poems and prose on my myspace blog doesn't exist anywhere else - in my usual disorganised manner I often wrote my blogs without keeping a copy, so I'd be devastated if all my poems suddenly disappear for ever ... So, needless to say, I'm going to have to start trawling through all of my old blogs, and try to rescue what I can while I can ...

This (below) is something I wrote a few years back - it makes me smile a little bit, as I realise that I'm so much more confident and outgoing now, compared to what I was like when I wrote it. I used to really suffer because of being such a quiet intovert. It's funny that once I accepted, embraced and cherished this part of myself, it started to step back a bit and allow a more outgoing part of me to step forward...

TONGUE TIED

Words seem to fall out

Through my fingers.

My pen does the talking.

But life would be so much

Easier

If the words came straight out

Of my mouth

Instead.

I feel like I've managed to achieve much more of a balance now - I still let my pen do a lot of the talking - or the keyboard - but I also feel much more able to let my mouth talk too! One thing's for sure though - I'm going to keep on writing for a long, long time - even if I have to start most of my poems from scratch if I don't manage to rescue everything from myspace...

And, blog or no blog, I'll always have my journal - my constant companion! My journal has helped me through many a tough day ... Journalling is something I recommend to everybody - writing things down really does help, and no - you don't have to have any particular flair - just pick up a pen and see what happens! You never know - you might decide to set up a blog too - like me, my daughter began with writing in a journal, and now she's taking her first tentative steps (well more of a leap to be honest!) into the world of blogging!

It's always a wee bit emotional, looking back through my old journal entries, but in looking back, it helps me to see how much I've learned and grown, and it gives me the faith that whatever life throws at me next, i have the strength to cope...