Sometimes just after I hit that PUBLISH button on a post, I am struck by this feeling of “I’ve written this before”. Before? I haven’t; I realize that it’s because some of these stories I wrote in my head…years ago in some cases. And there they have remained.

Oh, perhaps residence of Middle-earth or Oz, or maybe Never Never Land have read my work, but no where on this side of the curtain.

I live inside my head, and so to be able to package up and get rid of some of the older ones, is very freeing. It gives me now the ability to work on some of the newer stories that I’ve come across. Funny how that works? Just when you believe you are this one particular thing, all of asudden life twirls you around in a spiral dance and when you stop you are staring in a completely different direction. Looking straight at things you just never realized where there, right inside you. You’ve lost some of your prized “stuff” from your gunny sac, but you’ve come out relatively unscathed and lighter on your feet. You are buoyant and dizzy.

Back when I was six years old, I had a mean ol’teacher and she yelled at me for talking in class. I hadn’t been, but this boy was bugging me and I finally told him to “go fly a kite”. Then I got in trouble for talking. I was so hurt that to this day I still question myself, occasionally. That sounds a wee melodramatic, I know, but was it nurture or nature that made me an introvert? I speak when I have something to say; I don’t “chit chat” well. I don’t know very much “meaningless stuff” to conduct a conversation with someone for any great length of time. I’d rather, actually, say nothing. Easier than having someone gaze back at you with glazed over eyes, and then I have to somehow finish my thought, quickly, and slink back to silence with some dignity intact.

Lately though I’ve felt this “who gives a flying buttress what people think” attitude, and said whatever I damn well pleased. Although there is still merit in silence. However I have found I can discourse with others and not feel compelled to fit in. I don’t care if I stand out, and if they think I’m weird? So what, I am weird. What’s the sense in hiding.

So sometimes when I hit that ol’PUBLISH icon, I know I’ve once again finally released one of the tales that has cluttered up my brain for so long. Blogging for me is like making compost – every day I take out the skins and cores of my story, add them to the pile. Every day it ferments and turns, and I add more. Over time I will have good, rich compost that I can use all over my metaphoric future garden.