Allow Me to (re)Introduce Myself

I created this blog sometime during my first or second semester of college. Five years after I graduated from high school, the opportunity to attend college - a dream of mine - was seized. I was in a healthy relationship with the most supportive, loving, caring, and understanding person I know, who encouraged me to fulfill my dreams. Fortunately, I am still with him and he still supports my every move.

I remember sitting in the computer lab listening to my Media Writing instructor discuss social media and blogging. At the time, I really did not know much about either, and was very apprehensive about posting anything too personal for others to read. I still had too much to hide. The instructor loved the name of my blog, and I felt that my content would never live up to the name, as I knew I would never have the ability to freely write on something so public.

Fast forward to my final semester at college: I am currently enrolled in an Independent Study in which I am further investigating narrative theory, autoethnography, and a story that I began ten years ago and one that keeps evolving every time my fingers touch the keyboard or my pen leaks secrets in my notebook.

Through my own autoethnography I have began a healing process that I denied myself for so long. Through the story and this blog, my intentions are to spread the healing of story telling, the importance of autoethnography, and the power of the stories we live and tell. Equally important to me is that through my story, which I hope to have published by the end of the semester (December), I can raise awareness and help others. People learn not only from their stories but from the stories told by others. We find somewhere to turn to when we hear a similar story to our own; we learn we are not alone. We disrobe ourselves and feel freer to live in a nudist colony of story and life sharing. Many times I have read someone else's story or listened to someone else recount a memory, and felt a connection despite never having met that person. The feeling that you are not alone, that although your story is unique to you, you can find comfort in the shared experience of others, is not only enlightening, it feels revolutionary.

So, join me and others as I share my stories, my progress, and that of others through our natural, human instinct: storytelling.