Five Years

It's hard to believe that yesterday marks five years since I wrote this post to kick off "Little Did She Know…" So much has changed in that time, and so much of it just drips with little did I know.

In college writing classes, we talked and wrote at length about "finding your voice." I think we all sort of thought that we had already, I know I did. We were writing deep, serious pieces about the meaning of life, sexuality, mortality and love. We were writers. 

And we were. There's no way to become a writer without writing, no matter what anyone tells you. At the end of the day, it's about stringing words into a line, day after day, even when you want to cry with the effort, and you think that everything you've written deserves to be burned (perhaps especially then).

I started writing here because I was writing a peppy, school-spirit type blog for the admissions office, and I needed somewhere to be myself. I started writing here because I was far from home, and from people that I loved and I wanted to find a way to share life with them.

It's amazing how little that has changed.

Earlier this year, I got serious about posting here regularly. I changed my tagline to reflect my goal: to write about faith and life. I committed to writing three times a week about whatever I was seeing. I was scared to death.

In April, I wrote a post that changed everything. It was about a local sports team, and about faith. It was about what we see, and what we don't and how we continue to believe anyway. To my disbelief, Wordpress picked up that post and featured it. That day still holds the record for most hits. I stood and marveled.

Since then, many of you have joined on, finding me all sorts of ways. I've made new friends, strong as any of the ones I know in person, and forged connections I hope to keep for a very long time.

It's easy to look back at the girl who started this blog five years ago. Little did she know, indeed. Little did she know the blessing that this place would be, the ways that I would be seeking God through the written word and recording it here. Little did she know that finding her voice would be a never-ending process, a life-long game of "Marco Polo."

There will be changes of many kinds in the upcoming year. Some, I'm getting an inkling about, and others will be a complete surprise.

Little did she know...

I want to thank you for being with me on this journey, wherever you've joined up. It's wonderful to know that I'm not just talking to myself as I bring these things up, trying to process, trying to see.