On why I choose(ded) to keep writing

She tries on my hairband, the one she sees me wear running. She tells me she isn't sure who she is going to marry yet. "You're five, silly." I tell her. "There's plenty of time."
She switches out my plain black band for her frilly pink crown and asks, "You choose-ded Daddy because he is your best, best friend, right Mama?" I tell her yes, that's exactly right.
::

We're sitting on the couch in the first quiet moments of evening. He opens the laptop and starts reading the blog. "Just skip over that first one," I tell him. "It's me droning on being all deep and contemplative. BOOOR-ing..."


"Yeah, I started reading it," he says, "but then I nodded off." He fake snores, and I laugh for real.

"This one's good," he says, "and look at all the comments."

"Yeah, I usually don't get very many comments anymore," I admit.

He grins. "Well, maybe if you would just write better--"

I laugh again, take a swipe at his head.

He ducks.

Yes, this is exactly why I choose-ded him. 


::


Sometimes I question what it is I have to say, and why anyone would care to hear it. There's something so audacious about art of any kind, something so assumptive. I don't think I have the chops to write in that brave and daring way, the way that asserts I am worth your time. It probably says something about me that I'd rather write in oblivion than be labeled a narcissist.

Yet when I read back over the blog--which I do when I'm feeling particularly uninspired--which is often--I slowly return to the belief that I'm writing primarily for my own good. To remember, to remind, to speak truth to myself.

It might be the sort of truth and memory that only applies to me, or it might stretch universal.  It might be the sort of post that my husband mocks (reading it aloud in his high-pitched voice with his chin thrust forward and his head tilted to the right). Or it might be the sort of post that makes us both weep when we read it 15 years later. I'm realizing that whether it's worth the time of anyone else is irrelevant, as long as it's worth mine.

And I think it is.