Guess Who's Back?

Not to get sentimental, but I was recently reminded of the joys of writing a blog. So, I logged into Dribbling Ink to see my past failed attempt at a blog. A number of things immediately struck me. My last post was dated Monday, December 1, 2008, which was just a short video of the immediate celebration after the Miracle on Markham II. Seriously? I went an entire year without writing a single blog entry. Naturally, I asked myself what happened.

The answer is simple. Life happened. I started blogging because I didn’t have anything better to do. I had just gotten married and moved to Arkadelphia, where I failed to find a job for a few months. Tell me a better way to waste your time than to write blogs that nobody reads? After Christmas I started graduate school at Henderson State University. During the fall, I began working as a graduate assistant in the HSU Writing Center. (I also spent a few torturous months as a substitute teacher.) Essentially, I didn’t have a reason to write a blog anymore. I had life to do.

Except that’s not how it works.

I’ve had plenty of time and thoughts since my last post; I just needed to be reminded that I love to write. A co-worker of mine in the writing center always jokes that I should write my thesis about sports because it is the only thing I know and care enough about to crank out 100 pages worth of information concerning, which is a fair enough assessment. I spent all four years as an undergraduate covering local sports in Greene County for the Paragould Daily Press.

However, I’d like to think that I can talk about more than just sports. Therefore, though Dribbling Ink was created nearly six years ago as a sports column in the Paragould Daily Press, it’s time to expand. To what? I don’t know. But I do know the three things that dominate my life: sports, literature, and Arkansas. The first two are pretty obvious, but the last one may be the most important. Arkansas encompasses a lot more than just its physical boundaries. It’s about family, growing up, identity, and the future.

I like to think of myself as a realist, though most people that know me don’t hesitate to call me a pessimist. Sure, I’ll probably forget about Dribbling Ink again—I certainly don’t expect to be writing it a decade from now—but there’s a joy that comes with writing a blog. With writing, in general. Life will assuredly happen again, and Dribbling Ink will probably disappear from my thoughts completely the next time; however, there’s still plenty of time in-between school, work, and home to contribute a few more blogs to the annals of writing that nobody will ever read.

Maybe I will see (or blog about) you along the way.