This week I began the task of formally changing my name and I learned a few interesting things in the process.
1. Most people (regardless of the true legal standing or status of your formal paperwork) will immediately start calling you by your married last name the instant you leave the church! I'm not complaining about this...just saying!
2. Every entity with whom you will need to change your name will have slightly different application, documentation, and verification requirements. Credit cards are alarmingly easy to change. Bank accounts are unnecessarily difficult to change. Passports...you are essentially a brand new person - please re-apply and send us your money. DMV...well...it's the DMV...
Then there was my additional decision to change my person email to reflect my new name, which was not totally necessary, but in the long run will be easier for everyone! That started the tedious process of updating every login, sign-up, free coupon, etc. list I'd ever been on, which eventually led to: forget it, I don't need 4 emails a day from this (insert social action/politician/store discount/etc.) anyway; my married life will be better without you!
It was in the process of this email update that the blog came back onto my radar screen, as my blogger account is tied to my old gmail account, therefore preventing me from ever really deleting it because I'd like to have access to this handy little archive of the last 4 years of my life. However, having not looked at my blog since April, and having recently recognized with a number of people that my writing had slowed to a trickle, I thought I'd probably just let this account sit...maybe save the archive to a flash drive...and acknowledge that the days of sitting alone and shouting at the internet in search of validation had passed (mostly because I can now shout across the house for validation, and J Word helpfully and gladly obliges!) ;)
Yet, when I signed back into my blogger account, I found something rather interesting. Blogger keeps all kinds of stats and analytics for the blog's readership, and though I haven't written since April, people have continued to visit the page in May and June and now July. Though when I write actively I have 100's of visitors a month, even when I wasn't writing I still had 3-5 page views a day. What were these people doing? Reading old posts? Checking to see if I was back? I know Mookie read the "30 before 30" list looking for things to help me check off. What were other people up to?
And thus...I find myself here writing again because I had readers even when I wasn't writing...so maybe I owe it to those readers to write. Plus, there'll be plenty of new stories to tell from married life, and J Word is great fun to have adventures and stories with. So there's that.
PLUS...one of these days I'll get my act together and check that "Write a Novel" item off my list...and then I'm REALLY going to want readers! So it's best not to alienate the few that have managed to stick it out this far.
So I'm here! Or...I'm back! And I'll try to stick around for awhile. Running, writing, and married life updates to come!
Happy Trails,
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