I'm Done Overthinking: The Blogging Meta Post.

I am going to publish this. No matter how it turns out. I've been wanting to blog more for a while now. But I haven't. So in true Alison fashion, I started to overthink it. I wrote and left unfinished dozens of posts. Why can't I just hit "publish?"

Theory 1: The pandemic has killed my sense of humor and my ability to write lighthearted things. And this just wouldn't be Ali Off the Mark if it wasn't at least a little funny. This is true to an extent. I think covid really did deal my "funny" a rough blow. But that's a pretty thin excuse not to write *anything.* Especially since one of the things I'd like to share is my experience with depression and the partial hospitalization program I went through this past winter.

Theory 2: I have not only lost my ability to write humor, but the pandemic has also affected my ability to be vulnerable, and this blog is predicated on my willingness to be open. I think this theory also has merit. Covid has forced us all to come face-to-face with some scary realities that left us feeling vulnerable against our will. With all going on, it's only natural to want to protect and control whatever we can—to hide from the world to avoid more hurt. Blogging isn't hiding. But really, no writing is. You just can't hide and try to be a writer at the same time so even if this theory is right, I need to get over it.

Theory 3: I'm just too busy writing books to write a blog. Hahaha. I mean, I should be. But I'm not. Book writing and blog writing come from different parts of my brain. This theory is total bullshit. Get over yourself, Alison.

Theory 4: So I've established that I WANT to write, even though it's uncomfortable, and that I should be able to do so here without tanking my book progress. So what the fuck is it? Is it the fact that this blog will never be quite like it was when it first started? I mean, back in the day I used to write about my kids a lot. But the little ones ain't so little anymore and they are awesome people, they just don't say those "darndest" things like they once did. And the way the platform deals with images isn't what it used to be. And blogging just isn't as much of a "thing" as it was in 2013. And... and... and... STOP. This is the most weak-sauce set of excuses not to write.

Conclusion: Stop over-thinking and just start posting. I'm not promising beautiful, polished prose. But I am going to try to entertain you. I'll even use Grammarly to keep it from being a complete mess. And as a result, I will have an outlet for writing that's something more structured than journaling and less structured than writing fiction: blogging! So hello, world. Let's do this thing.