why blogging? what have I been doing instead?
I don't really know why I blog. I've read a couple of others posts about it: you can find a lot on bear blog, but most of them don't really fit for me. I keep a paper journal. I want to spend more time offline and I'm not really looking for a community (I'm lucky enough to have enough friends).
Things I enjoy about it:
- I enjoy tinkering with web code, and none of my irl friends are interested.
- The satisfaction of seeing things written out and arranged on a page
Is that enough?
Last night I went to a cabaret show my friend was performing in (amazing fun) and I cycled home late. I put on my head is empty because I feel like listening to something ambient, and I saw two foxes wandering the streets.
I started browsing Winnie Lim's blog because of her photography, but I stumbled across her posts on chronic health and migraines. They make me feel a lot of complicated feelings.
The posts capture the isolation and unfairness of chronic illness really well - the feeling that no-one understands the reasons the reasons you can't do what everyone else does. It sounds like she's suffered more from her migraines than me, and had to give up more - mine are largely kept under control currently by the triptan medication I take.
She's on the other side of a lifestyle change I've been unable to accept - cutting things out of your life that are bad for you. For example, I know drinking alcohol triggers migraines, but I feel unable to stop because it feels so unfair to be unable to have the fun others are having without consequence - I know, when I put it like that I feel like a child!
There's other things, like stress, travel, pushing myself with cardio exercise - that I continue to do because I don't want to give them up. I have a lot of conflicting feelings about looking after myself vs not missing out of life, and the writing on this blog provided a perspective I appreciate from someone who's been through that process.
All the the writing on the blog is beautiful and insightful, but I'd recommend the isolating experience of my migraines for an example of what I'm talking about.
I finally started a project I've been wanting to do for awhile, documenting my collection of film postcards. These are promotional postcards given away in cinemas for films - I've been collecting them since I really got into going to the cinema as a hobby, about a decade ago.
I made a code pen for my initial concept here.
I was inspired to start working on this by Kwon's dad hats collection, which is a lot simpler and poignant but reminded me it was something I wanted to do.