You may have noticed I deleted my last post. I’ve deleted at least three posts now that I’ve written, then regretted writing, then deleted hastily in at least the past four months. I’m not sure why this is. I’m sure it’s something seriously psychological I need to get checked out, but am too poor to do so. I actually have a reason to give you this time, though, for deleting the big post about my new tagline and changing things on my blog, and whatnot. I had a whole new post written out for you for today explaining the whole thing, but then I realized those weren’t the words that needed posting. These were.
Lauren Ever After is about acceptance. Simple as that. It’s about knowing that I have awry thinking and judgment at times, because I’m human and it happens to the best of us. It’s also about perspective and resolve and growth. These are the four words I want to focus on with my blog, and I think the tagline I’ve carried on it for a while now, the same one I carried with my old blog, is a perfect fit – maybe more so now than before – and after doing some thinking, I really don’t see the need to change it.
The beauty in misguidance is acquiring the ability to pave your own path.
We are always being misguided – by sin, by Satan, by our peers, our family, our lovers, even by ourselves. Not that this is true all the time nor for everyone in our lives. For instance, I have several people in my life who’s opinions and insights I highly respect and trust. I have never thought of their advice as misguiding. They are the ones who get me back on track, who help give me just perspective, who are there for me when I need to unload. I want this blog to be about encountering and interpreting, and learning from my encounters and interpretations.
What made me rethink the idea behind this blog was actually a book. I won’t say what book on this blog, but it was a silly, lighthearted chick-lit book that wasn’t doing anything for me in the least. I picked it up, thinking I needed to partake in some mindless reading to shake off the dregs of August, and quickly realized the book was doing nothing for me. I had to stop reading it. Instead, I picked up another book – more literary, serious, slow-burning – and found that what I needed was a book that grounded me and made me think. I didn’t want to float on the clouds of escapist fiction, even if said fiction wasn’t intended to be escapist. The way I approached it was escapist. I spent a majority of the month feeling, acting, and writing obnoxious and flighty posts – funny, yes, but a little too intensely so.
It’s not that I don’t want to be or like being humorous and amusing. It’s just that, in hindsight, I feel like I was trying to make myself something I’m not, or at least, something I’m not yet – bold, bad-ass, emotionally frivolous. Then I had to ask myself if I wanted to be these things. Yes, I want to be bold; yes, I want to be a fighter; yes, I want to be more assertive. But I also like being what I already am – contemplative, quiet, silly, reserved, awkward. Yes, I like being awkward. You wouldn’t think so, but I’ve always been that way, and I’m learning to be okay with that. I’m learning to be okay with a lot of things about myself. I’m learning that, despite the many ways I’ve already changed the way I think, I’m still figuring out how to navigate through the thick, briny woods of life. I’m still chartering, maneuvering, paving. Paving my own path. And I always will be.