In your mind, do you define yourself by what you do? In high school, I proudly wore the label of speech geek. I was the dedicated student in college. Then, for the longest time I defined myself by who I was with. That led to some dark days.
I was very quick to adopt the label of “dancer.” Every positive connotation on the planet was associated with that label (at least in my mind), and long before I sucked less at any of the steps, I was definitely defining myself that way.
With as eager as I was to adopt that label, it surprised me at how long it took me to accept the blogger moniker. It wasn’t until the one year mark that I even started to think of myself that way.
For me, I think it is because I view it as something anyone can do. Seriously, who couldn’t write two 350-600 word posts a week without fail indefinitely? I had five posts already done when I launched and another fifteen fully outlined. What was the big deal?
Okay, now I’m starting to see how this might seem a Herculean task. Unlike normal bloggers, I jumped in with both feet from the onset with my own site and battling WordPress alone. I joke that others are smarter than I am, but then again, that up-front commitment made it easier for me to keep going for the last two years.
I started my blog the way Kurt and I started our dancing relationship: The agreement was always that we would do it until it wasn’t fun any more. This blog is still fun and a wonderful outlet for me.
Although I don’t know how much closer I am to answering the question, “Now what?”, at least this blog is making the path through life more enjoyable.
Thank you to everyone who has supported Grown Up, Now What? over the last two years and who have helped me embrace the title of “blogger.”
How do you define yourself? or What title have you been hesitant to adopt for yourself?
Grown Up, Now What? 
So glad to help you define yourself this way – I so enjoy reading your thoughtful posts!
The one title I am hesitant to adopt: Writer. Am I really? Because I just see myself as a blogger right now. 🙂
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Thank you, Andrea.
I haven’t branched out to the “w” word yet either. It seems big and flashy and so not how I see myself. When I imagine a writer, there is always a big work involved: a book, a play, something substantial, not 60,000 words broken out over 208 posts!
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Tammy, I love your blog! I can’t even remember how I got here, but I stayed!
Well, I just passed the one year mark on my blog and I still don’t think I’d call myself a blogger. Or a writer – what you said above is exactly the way I’d explain it. I can admit to being a writer at heart…but not in public. I think in the back of my head, I’m still amazed that anyone reads my blog at all. And even though I know not to compare to anyone else, it’s hard not to look at bloggers who have huge followings or who go to conferences and are just…major.
But then again, I didn’t start mine for that. I started it for me. Just because. Just to have a little thing. So that’s me.
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Congratulations on your one year anniversary of your blog. I also can’t remember how I found your blog, but I am so glad I did.
I, too, initially wanted to be the popular blog on the block. Like you, that wasn’t why I started, but who doesn’t want a large following? I’m so glad I quit trying so hard and mentally made the mental switch to writing well.
Hopefully as we keep up our blogs, we’ll eventually be able to define ourselves as writers.
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