New to Blogging

In case you haven't been able to tell, I am new to blogging. Last night, as I was lying in bed sorting out the day, I was thinking about blogging! I was raised to believe that you should never write anything you didn't want anyone else to have access to. As a result, I have never been comfortable with a diary or journaling. I always worried that someone would have access to my thoughts and feelings and that that wasn't okay. One time when I was in high school, my boyfriend would write me letters that were "suggestive." My mom found one of them, of course she read it and, that confirmed for me that I didn't want anything to do with putting my true feelings out there, especially in writing!

I'm not terribly creative - no poetry or "creative" writing. My blogs will be oriented to getting my head around all the thoughts in my head...redundant, yes? But, I am hoping to sort a lot of things out. Please feel free to post comments - just be gentle and constructive.

Thoughts for the day: Maturity,college and what am I going to do with the rest of my life!

At my age (entering the 50's), I should be thinking about retiring, downsizing the house, picking out a place to finish out my life. But, that is so dissatisfying to think about. For the last 25 years I have been a wife. For the last 21 years I have also been a full time parent of three. A very full time job and, for about 90% of the time, very satisfying! However, as I sent my first child off to college three years ago, it dawned on me that I was beginning to get into that age where I was moving from being "in demand constantly" to being "available as needed." A scary thought! For some reason, that really made me think about what I was doing with my life. I went back to college to study International Affairs - my emphasis is domestic and international service.

Going back to college has been a fabulous experience. I love going to class, I love interacting and learning. It is such a different experience than when I first went off to college at the ripe old age of 17. (All I wanted to do then was have a whole lot of fun.) The professors are interesting, my classmates (other than being a lot younger) are bright and passionate. But, going back to college has unleashed a fury within me. For such a long time I chose to ignore the world around me - I was so busy with three babies - it was really convenient for me to just read the comics in the Sunday morning paper and completely ignore the "world" section.

This fury within me is very hard to keep quiet. My biggest issue: that I chose to remain closed to the rest of the world while keeping my own little space as tidy as possible. I don't mean tidy in the sense of clean - I mean tidy in that I didn't deal with anything I didn't want to. When I had children, I allowed myself to shut down to the world around me. I was so focused and so serious about the task at hand - keeping the little ones safe from the world, trying to teach them to make responsible decisions. Not too bad of a decision but one that took me away. I was a child of the 60's and 70's - too young to really be involved with the protests but so very aware of what was happening around me. Yet, as I aged, I ignored that passion I had always felt.

Now, I feel like I need to make up for that. I find myself reading books and books - the troubles in Ireland (not a new issue, I know), Sarajevo, Somalia, Rwanda - searching for more and more information, trying to feed the fire and quell the fire at the same time. And what I find is that my response is so physical and emotional. When my Developing Countries class watched the Ghosts of Rwanda - I was physically and emotionally devastated for about two days. It took me that long to push the pictures back and gain some perspective (possible?) on what happened. I had the same reaction to The Age of Aids special on PBS. However, it has helped me decide which direction I want to go in the future. Such a satisfying thought - I have finally decided what I want to do when I grow up. What I have decided is that I, as one person in the world, can make a huge difference in the world. I want to be involved with initiatives to help people in developing countries - raising awareness on poverty, HIV/AIDS, education and, more importantly, economic development projects for women. I want to be involved in projects that teach people how to support themselves - projects that provide employment and economic development for communities at local and regional levels in developing countries. I want to make a difference!

Enough rambling for now. I need to go make pancakes for the youngest of my tribe!

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