While I was sleeping...

How did I miss that?

I've been blogging for a year and never noticed! Damn, I hate it when I miss a birthday.

So, it's been a year and it's most certainly been a year.

It's pretty unusual for me to blog about blogging. Seems like a strange thing to do in some ways...kind of like writing a book about writing a book, or singing a song about singing a song. Both of which have been done, so maybe it's not so strange.

Anyway, with a year under my belt (and not wanting to miss an opportunity to tell you all how I feel about a subject) I thought I'd talk about blogging, just this once.

Almost everyone who comes here with any regularity is a blogger themselves, so I'm guessing you have feelings about blogging and the impact it has on your lives. Blogging for me has been a big surprise, delivering me far more than I ever expected.

I thought I'd just write about my life, in a kind of 'this stuff doesn't seem to happen to anyone else, so I'm going to write it down before I forget' kind of way. I never thought anyone would want to read it. But Swearing Mother wanted to.

Sweary was my first ever reader, and has been a loyal friend ever since. So many of you followed and I love that you did. What has amazed me about you all is the sheer diversity of everyone and how very few of you have a similar life to mine.

I've been discussing with Louise the role that blogging plays in a world where tolerance isn't always there.

I really do think that blogging gives a window into a life that we may never think about living ourselves (Lord knows me and Louise are very different - which we secretly love about each other). Blogging allows us to see the normal-ness of that other life, despite it being very different from our own normality. I like that. If more people blogged, would the world be more tolerant?

Beyond this, blogging is all about being nosey, surely? We say it's 'human interest' but surely it's nosiness? It's like looking into someone else's front room (and sometimes their bedroom) taking it all in and then telling them what we think about it. How cool is that? I know more about my fellow bloggers than I do about some of my family.

But more than seeing how other people live, being nosey and sticking my oar in, blogging has brought me a bunch of people that are turning out to be good friends. Some of you I talk to regularly via email, which I really enjoy. And then others are friends in the flesh too. Well, when I say in the flesh, I just mean that I met you and I liked you.

At least one of you is starting to look like someone I'll still be annoying when I'm old and miserable. I love that blogging brought me this friend.

It'd be a bit odd to say that this old blog has changed my life, but in some ways it has. For the better, too. I'm still me and I still fuck up pretty regularly. I just tell more people about it when I do. I guess it's like really cheap therapy....

So, this has possibly turned out to be a mix of sentimental claptrap and the musings of a tired mind. But I mean it all. Really I do.

Please keep coming to see me, keep leaving comments and, for those of you who visit me and don't post comments - well, you're also welcome, but I do love me a comment!.

Thanks everyone, it's been a fine year.

TBNIL x