For the past year, this blog existed in the same way that ¹Creed Thoughts existed—on a word document. Hidden far away from the cyberbullies and haterade drinkers of the world. Never in my wildest dreams did I think I’d have the courage to let my baby blog surf the interwebs. This is mostly because my dreams consist of running away from kidnappers, but also because I am a scaredy cat.

The mere thought of publishing this blog used to send my body into fetal position. So it’s nothing short of a miracle this post is seeing the light of day. I know what you’re thinking…How did I conquer my fears? How did I go from zero to hero? From scaredy cat to brave dog? Well, let me tell you my secret: T-Mobile.

For those of you that don’t know, ²T-Mobile’s my life coach. He helps and inspires me to achieve the impossible through various methods, the most effective being MCP (aka Mid-Century Peasant). MCP is a meditation of sorts, it’s where T-Mobile encourages me to reflect on what I’m avoiding in life, by making my service go *poof*

Typically, I resist reflection by distracting myself with other peasant things: the injustices of serfdom, determining who’s hotter: Arthur or Lancelot, or narrowing down which of my neighbors are witches. But during an especially lengthy MCP session, I finally surrendered to what I was actually avoiding: What I’d like to do with my life and why I wasn’t doing it.

Once this question surfaced, dozens of other thoughts cannonballed//emerged from my subconsciousness into my conscious brain (for those being read aloud on the cassette tape I sent you personally, “thoughts” is spelled T-H-O-U-G-H-T-S, not T-H-O-T-S. Otherwise, I would most certainly be braindead.):

Why was I hoarding all of this okay-ish content? Why wasn’t I doing what I like? When will my service come back? But most importantly, why did I insist on depriving my angel mother the opportunity to brag about me, her blogger daughter, on our next family Christmas card?

These thoughts hit me deep because here’s the thing: I have a fat crush on writing. Always have, always will. I feel myself around writing, it’s always there for me, it listens to me, and even after all these years… writing still gives me butterflies. 

On the other hand, we’re not perfect. We’re just as prone to the pitfalls that plague other relationships: miscommunication, how to properly load the dishwasher, the debilitating fear of people not liking us. Clearly we’re the modern-day Romeo and Juliet, minus a few minor details…my family actually loves us together, one of us isn’t human, blah, blah, blah.

I felt conflicted. Just because I ³like-like writing, does that mean we should blog? Is that our next step? With so much to consider and still no service to ask WikiHow for advice, I turned to the next best thing–a pros and cons list.

Pros:

• Writing makes me happy
• Brene Brown would be proud
• My mother could brag about me

Cons:

• I won’t be good at blogging
• My entire identity would surround blogging and I’d get a tattoo like, “I am Blogger” (inevitably it’d be misspelled as something like “I am Horseradish” in Japanese characters)
• People won’t like it

After writing that list, it’s safe to say I have some people pleasing tendencies, but since neither of us have the time nor money to fully unpack that issue, let’s get to the root of it all: I don’t want to start this blog unless I know I’ll be good at it. 

So, instead of starting, I became deeply devoted to brainstorming (aka procrastination) this past year. I’d think of anything that could possibly go wrong while blogging, assuring myself I needed to fail-proof this project before publishing a post. Shockingly, my year of mental gymnastics didn’t help me to become a better blogger, it only transformed me into my own Olympic-level cockblock to blogging…a ⁴real cockblogger if you.

After realizing what I’ve been doing, I knew I had to stop. Not only does cockblogging sound extremely illegal, but it isn’t lucrative enough fulfilling. Turns out, you can’t cockblock the cringe out of trying something new–no one can. Not even our very favorite Ryan Reynolds, remember his movie Green Lantern?

Ryan lovingly referred to it as, ⁵“the darkest crease in the anus of the universe.” Did the critics criticize? No doubt. Was it unanimously deemed the worst comic book movie of all time? You betcha. Was I his shoulder to cry on during this difficult time? Always. But did you know that Green Lantern is actually what brought Ryan Reynolds and Blake Lively together? Literally his greatest career failure, led him to our queen Blake…BLAKE. 

This not only serves as a reminder to unironically listen to Bless the Broken Road, but that you never know what’s on the other side of ⁶Cringe. Sure, there are moments when getting out of your comfort zone feels like trudging through “anus of the universe” territory (and not the hot kind), but that’s where the growth happens. Just think, if Ryan had played it safe by turning down Green Lantern, he wouldn’t have met Blake, the world wouldn’t know what true love is, and worst of all, our Pinterest wedding boards would be void of the perfect engagement ring.

Clearly, there are severe, global consequences for choosing to not be a brave dog, and since I am a very considerate person, that leaves me with no other choice but to become a ⁷blogger. Could blogging lead to something neat? Maybe. Could it lead to creating so much cringe that even the Amish aren’t safe? Highly possible. Either way, here’s to finding out!

Everyone, meet my crush, Behind the Blonde Curtain. Stay as long as you’d like!!xx