This post has been inside me for a long time. About three weeks ago, somebody I know wrote about their thoughts and reasons for beginning a blog, and that inspired me to drop a post on the story behind why I started blogging, or, at least, why I chose a blog as a venue.
I've said a couple of times that I started this blog as a venue to practice a more casual writing style. One of my first real jobs was as a technical writer, and from there, I moved to a marketing role for a company that had a very casual product line, somewhat irreverent, even, and I found it a challenge to write in that way. It's much easier for me to write in a more technical and precise way, and sometimes that shows up as very stilted language in a personal blog setting.
I like to write, and as for a career, I've stated here that if I had it to do over again, I'd be an architect. That is 100% true, and my second career would be writing. I like (romantically) to think that I have a novel somewhere in here, but I don't really know. I know that I have a creative mind for stories and that kind of thing - and I appreciate a good plot twist, but like I said, who knows?
So the start of this blog was primarily to practice some of that casual tone. Sometimes that goes better than others.
One of the side benefits to blogging is this: when you decide to blog, you need to find a way to post things on a semi-regular basis. For me, that has led to putting more of myself out there a little more than I thought I would be willing to do. And you know what? It's been quite therapeutic for me in that way.
There are some things you already know about me: I came to the US about 20 years ago. I am not a citizen, but I am a legal resident. I used to be a member of the LDS church, but now I'm not. And I'm totally fine with this concept. I have four kids (biologically) and four who are step kids - although they are all "my kids". By and large, and most of the time, all of our family members are fine with where we are, both immediate and extended. And I am totally at peace with where my life is in terms of what I think about life generally, and religion specifically.
But there are deeper things. Most of my extended family doesn't know about this space because I have never told them about it. All of my immediate family is totally aware, and many read regularly, many others read occasionally. There are others who have not been told about it on purpose.
My parents don't know about it - I believe - and I have been fine with that as well. Early on, I espoused some pretty critical thinking, along with a healthy dose of downright liberalism, and while I know they love me, I wasn't sure they would be all that thrilled about reading about it.
This is where I relax and finally recline on that nice leather couch in the office, and tell you all about it....
When I was going into 12th grade, my dad took a year-long job exchange with a university in another city on the Canadian Left Coast. I was VERY not happy with being uprooted for my senior year of high school, but obviously, there was nothing I could do. So I went along.
We shipped our stuff out to the rented house we would live in for the year, and followed it out a couple of weeks later. Part of that shipment included 4 saxophones, at least 2 trumpets and a flugelhorn, 2 guitars, several boxes of accompanying music books and other ephemera, among the rest of a garage full of personal effects. Dad was to teach music classes at the university for the year, and so there were also many boxes of university-level books and things as well.
Turns out that the house we were going to live in was owned by a family with a son the same age as me, whose family was also off to another city as part of this job exchange. This son was popular at school, and had a girlfriend who spent a fair amount of time over at the house, and was there when our stuff showed up. She was very pretty, with wavy brown hair, tanned skin with freckles across the bridge of her nose, and slightly large teeth, and a pretty fine arse. She happened to be the first-chair alto sax player in the school's band program. Her best friend was the lead tenor player. (This little tidbit would become important soon enough.)
Part two coming shortly. (Yes, it gets better...)
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