Every once in a while, something can unexpectedly inspire you.

Confession: I started this whole blog thing on a whim.  I was bored one night and just started writing.  Then, for some reason, I decided to share it.  I have wondered why ever since… I’ve always loved writing, but I have also always been shy about other people reading my work.

When I have kept blogs in the past I was actually doing cool things like exploring ancient ruins in Greece and running around Beijing with British men.  My life is decidedly less exciting right now.  I get my kicks finding good deals at thrift stores rather than floating in the Aegean Sea and spend the majority of my time either at work or curled up on my couch with a book- and people probably don’t want to read about me reading Vonnegut in sweatpants.  So, all week, I have toyed with the idea of deleting this blog because- while I may be narcissistic enough to have a Facebook page (And, I confess, a Twitter account)- I am not vain enough to think that I have anything new to say, or a particularly eloquent way of saying it.

Deleting the words I write wouldn’t be new for me.  I always kept a diary growing up and, after filling its pages for weeks on end, I would tear them out, rip them up, and throw them away.  This was probably directly related to the fact that I have five siblings and I dreaded the thought of them reading it and discovering all of my juicy elementary school secrets.  (I would have totally read their diaries… and did on a few occasions- sorry Brook and Dani.)

Then, last night, I picked up a book called Like Shaking Hands with God.  It’s short- only about 80 pages- so quite a quick read.  It is simply the record of two public conversations held by Kurt Vonnegut and another writer named Lee Stringer.  Mr. Vonnegut’s words in his interview, as they have done many times in his novels, completely captivated my attention.  I read it all in one sitting.

He described writing as “idiosyncratic arrangements in horizontal lines of twenty-six phonetic symbols, ten numbers, and maybe eight punctuation marks.”  He also noted that there really isn’t anything to do that hasn’t been done before.  Luckily, Vonnegut didn’t stop there- and his next words were the ones that really struck a chord in me:

 Still and all, why bother?  Here’s my answer: Many people need desperately to receive this message: “I feel and think as much as you do, care about many of the things you care about, although most people don’t care about them.  You are not alone.”

So friends, for now, I have decided not to delete my random musings.  Because if I can somehow make even one person feel that they are not alone in their search for self and happiness in the madness of life, that would be enough for me.

You are not alone.

Boom.  You just read a post about me reading Vonnegut in my sweatpants.