Blogging Grace

I have blog envy.

Since I have started blogging I have also started reading more blogs (including some blogs that are supposed to teach you how to be a better blogger) and I will admit that on some days I kind of hate my blog. The very best blogs that I have found are well written, focused on a specific topic or niche and are spearheaded by a very interesting blogger who usually has unique characteristics that define his or her life.

At this point my blog has none of those things. I don't mean to say that in a woe is me kind of way, it is just a simple observation that my writing is rusty, my topics are all over the place, and if I'm being honest, there is nothing that unique about my life these days (not that I'm complaining, I love my simple, beautiful, ordinary life).

So, some days I hate my blog, and on those days I am forced to search my thoughts and feelings for the reason why. Why does it matter to me how popular, read, or followed my blog is? Why am I blogging in the first place?

I started blogging because I wanted to write. Period. No agenda, no niche or clear cut topic, no platform. I guess what I am finding is that, yes it is great that I want to write and I am doing that, but it naturally follows that I want to be read too. Hence the blog envy when I visit some of my favorite blogs and see the followers in the thousands.

My good friend recently told me something to this effect, "You have to be able to give yourself grace."

I am not good at that in any area of my life really, from the cleanliness of my house to my exercise habits, I like to have it all put together and can be very hard on myself when things do not stack up. But as I deal with my blog envy the concept of grace is where I am putting my efforts. I am trying to give myself grace to have a very new blog that is still discovering itself, grace that I have not yet decided where I want to go with my writing, grace that I am still exploring the things in my life that I am passionate about and that fuel my writing.

My instincts and personality tell me that I want to have it all now, I want to have arrived, but I know there is a long road of discovery that I still have to travel as I decide what this blog is all about and what I am all about. I don't have to have everything all figured out right now, though wouldn't that be nice. I just have to have grace for myself as I am writing and blogging, learning and growing, finding my passion, my niche and maybe a little bit of myself along the way.