Once again I am finding it difficult to stay with the discipline of blogging. Thus I am writing a short entry this morning before I leave for work just to keep it fresh.

One of the big realizations I had the day I decided to return to blogging was that for most of my life, I've had a certain chameleon-like quality. I mean, I think I was true to my core values, to those things that are truly most important to me. But on a more superficial level I was really good at blending into whatever group I was with.

I think this was actually learned as a coping mechanism when I was a kid. We moved a bunch of times in my childhood, so I became really good at quickly assessing each new classroom and how to fit in. In high school I used to take pride in the fact that I was welcome among several different "cliques", though not really quite a member of most of them. Even in adulthood, it has often served me well.

But at the same time, I think it holds me back sometimes. It has certainly been one of the challenges of blogging -- it's hard to know what to put out there where God only knows who might find it and read it. And sometimes it makes me feel -- not a lack of integrity, exactly, but maybe a lack of integratedness. Generally speaking, it has not been my way to say "Here I am, take me or leave me." It has been my way to always try to present the side of me that they were going to want to take.

So when I decided to revive my blog, I also decided to work on really finding my own voice -- unashamedly writing what's important to me, what I feel, without always weighing who might be reading it. That's a lot scarier than it sounds -- I'm a woman still in a career crisis, who might have prospective employers checking out my web presence. Even as I write this I am totally tempted to hedge my bets, soften my stance, choose my words cautiously.

But I am not going to. I'm trying to take my inspiration from Popeye, that noted philosopher: "I am what I am." So now I guess my challenge is to make sure I know who that is!