I don't know what to title my first blogpost, it feels like too much pressure.

“If something inside of you is real, we will probably find it interesting, and it will probably be universal. So you must risk placing real emotion at the center of your work. Write straight into the emotional center of things. Write toward vulnerability. Risk being unliked. Tell the truth as you understand it. If you’re a writer you have a moral obligation to do this. And it is a revolutionary act—truth is always subversive.” - Anne Lamott “A story is never about one person. It has a full cast of characters, connected by blood or love or jealousy. There’s nothing small or inconsequential about our stories. There is, in fact, nothing bigger. And when we tell the truth about our lives—the broken parts, the secret parts, the beautiful parts—then the gospel comes to life, an actual story about redemption, instead of abstraction and theory” - Shauna Niequest

I texted my friend Emily, a talented writer and incredible friend, about starting a blog. Her enthusiasm, complete with heart-eyed emojis and exclamation points, really encouraged me. I told her ".. even though I love vulnerability there is still a very big prideful part of me that wants people to think I have my life together. And the blog will reveal I don't. And writing breaks me open so I'm scared of being too personal. But oh well, here we go!"

So, here we go. I’ve decided to start a blog (or rather, continue a blog I started five years ago) to keep me writing and sharing, to push me creatively. I was going to start a new blog altogether, to spare you (actually, to spare myself) some very embarrassing blogposts from five years ago that are available for your eyes to peruse, and yet, I realized that "Learning and Growing" was still a title that stuck with me and that I wanted to build upon. I have no idea what this blog will look like. It also scares me because there are parts of me that I don’t want anyone to just be able to read at leisure. Writing is emotional and breaks open my soul and sometimes I physically feel it, a heaviness when certain things come up, then a total vulnerability. It's extremely exposing. If you've written something and shared it before, you know the feeling. But writing is worth it. And even though it breaks open, it also lets the light in. I've noticed that when I share myself with people, people in turn will share themselves back. Things get a lot more real and a lot less lonely when we all realize most of us are in the same boat, or at least have been in that boat before, or maybe will be in that boat one day.

Stories always help me out personally so much. When I'm feeling down, I cling to the stories of others, the hope that they share through words, the life that they spread. And when I'm feeling happy, stories can amplify for me that feeling of hope. Stories keep me buoyant, stories open my mind, they put me in another's shoes, and they make me realize how similar we all really are at our core.

So thank you in advance for taking the time to read this blog, for taking the time to read parts of my story and hopefully shed some light on your own. I will be sharing more soon.

Love, 
Meredith