free expression

...there's no such thing.

Expression comes with a cost. If you join a protest, you might be attacked. If you put up a billboard, it might be vandalized. If you write about it on your blog, a coworker might mention it at lunch. And so it goes.

I know some people who don't seem to know how to express themselves. Either they do it inappropriately ("Hey, you've lost weight! You're not nearly as fat as you used to be!") or not at all. I actually prefer bad expression to none. I'll never understand those who don't write, sing, draw, dance, construct things out of popsicle sticks, swear, or complain. I mean, how can they live? Sometimes I'm afraid of sitting next to one of those non-expressers at church or at the doctor's office. What if she suddenly explodes? I mean actually explodes - flesh and bones and emotions splattering everywhere. Isn't it inevitable, if you keep it all in?

I'd been clamming up lately, keeping a lot in. Facebook is nice, and I share some there, but who can really expressed herself adequately in a status update? I need more.

I decided to stop stewing and start writing again after reading some of my favorite and least favorite blogs. The good ones remind me that I want to write ("Wow, she said that so well! I have something to add!") and the bad ones remind me that I should write ("Why are people reading this? Why am I reading this, instead of writing my own?") It occurred to me that there are blogs that actually mean something to me. I don't read many these days, but the ones that I do make a difference in my day. Even the ones that irk me (maybe especially those) give me things to think about. They irritate me, make me laugh, inform me, inspire me. I started to wonder if maybe my blog had meant something to someone. I wondered if it still could. So I came back.

But as I said, there's a cost, a personal cost. I just can't write impersonally. Here you will learn what I'm really thinking and feeling, and sometimes I'm thinking and feeling boring or irritating things. But those things are especially difficult to get out of the carpet. So I'll just write, instead of spontaneously combusting in my family room.