I challenged the fire-breathing dragon that is BEDA (Blog Every Day in April) based on an impulse. I read about it, thought it sounded like a more interesting version of those enticing thirty-day challenges, and decided to give it a shot. So what if I was on a once-every-two-months blogging schedule before? I could blog every day. No biggie.
I didn’t think I would make it. I’d last a week, two weeks tops. Even if I was successful, how fun could it possibly be? I’d surely run out of ideas, and no one would read half the blogs I posted.
But people did read them. And I didn’t run out of ideas. On Twitter, Kelsey asked me how I came up with something to write about every single day. Sure, a good few of my thirty blogs were duds, but some of them actually did have a little substance. I honestly had no idea how I did it…until I had a talk with my friend Dana on Thursday.
The more time I spend with Dana, the more I realize how much we have in common. We started talking about the weird things we did as little kids, and she brought up how she had imaginary friends because she wasn’t able to have friends over very often. I never had imaginary friends, but I, too, was unable to hang out with friends often. I was at my grandma’s house more often than my own, and my grandparents never allowed me to invite people over or go to friends’ houses. I had my brother, but we hated each other back then because our small house didn’t give us enough personal space. For the most part, I had to entertain myself with the few resources I had. The ordinary became the extraordinary. The couch wasn’t a couch, but an island, and the carpet was the sea I had to struggle through to reach dry land. Even the food I ate had some sort of magical significance. My dull life became an adventure because that’s how I imagined it to be.
We all think we have boring lives because we’re not getting married on international TV like the royals or traveling to third world countries to feed starving children. But anyone’s life can be interesting. It’s all a matter of turning insignificant events into grander ideas. I’m the daughter of a loving middle class family living in the suburbs. On the surface, I’m as boring and normal as one could possibly be. I had to resort to writing about getting Chinese food for lunch and being woken up by cramps at 4 AM. Those posts weren’t exactly spellbinding. Hell, I don’t know how anyone found them entertaining at all. But I figured out a way to make more out of those short moments in those incredibly long days, which is generally better than a mundane play-by-play.
I want to thank those of you who showed up nearly every day whether I had time to comment back or not. Indira, Tamara, Taryn, Georgina, and Ashley – you guys (as well as everyone who else who stopped by on occasion) are marvelous. I was expecting one or two comments a day, if that. Taking part in BEDA has definitely encouraged me to continue blogging regularly. As much as I’d love to churn something out every day, I’ve run out of steam. And time. An every-other-day schedule sounds peachy. Yes, that’ll be perfect.
So, goodbye, BEDA. We hardly knew ye.
