I Have Thoughts & I Must Share Them

Hi! My name is Bianca, and this is my first blog. Blogging is kind of a pipe dream that I’ve always had but never really committed to. I never thought I would actually start a blog. I thought it would be too time-consuming. I could not and cannot bring myself to sit still long enough to journal regularly. So why exactly am I blogging now? Because I love stories

When I was little as soon as I could read, I loved reading stories. But I loved making up stories even more. Sometimes I would write them down in my cute sparkly notebooks and truly deplorable handwriting. When I had extra time on my hands, I would complement my handwriting with these really wretched stick figure drawings (that provided no real artistic value to the stories I told about adventuring frogs and horse ranchers).

But then, I discovered how much fun creating the all-encompassing and multi-faceted lives of my dolls was. These stories were even better than silly old frogs. I had four beloved dolls, and I created a fantasy world so vivid and real for each of them my parents genuinely became a little concerned.

My parents never worried too much, because I especially loved playing dolls with my favorite cousin Brenna. Brenna and I would happily sit for hours playing house, hospital, and restaurant with our dolls and having the BEST time. It was a beautiful utopian tableau.

Well, not really utopian. Brenna lived in upstate New York, and my family lives in West Michigan. That’s about a ten-hour car ride for slightly more developmentally appropriate maladaptive daydreaming. While my parents did the most to help me see my best friend at the time, that was a long drive for doll weddings. So when I was around ten, I leveled up my storytelling. That’s right baby, I hit the internet.

Emailing to be exact.

This was the next iteration of my storytelling because I now sent literal manuscripts from my mom's spam-ridden Juno email to Brenna's mom's spam-ridden Juno email. These emails detailed my dolls' valiant battles with tuberculosis, flash floods, blizzards, and plagues (my dolls were survivors, ok? You name it, they lived it).

But at some point in time, I stopped telling stories. I don’t remember when I sent my last email about the lives of my dolls, or the last time I wrote a chapter in my ‘note’ book The Secret Lives of Frogs. I’m not even sure exactly when I stopped playing with my dolls altogether.

What I do know is that before, my stories were alive. I would see them happening in my head. People would say “Bianca, you’re so good at making up stories.” I would agree and thank them, but really it never felt like I was creating anything. It felt like my stories happened around me.

When I stopped telling stories, it didn’t feel like growing up, it felt like my friends had left me.

Really, this is just normative pre-adolescent development. I moved towards developing and maintaining more IRL friendships, and started creating real stories a.k.a memories with my friends ( I majored in psychology in college can ya tell?). It sounds sad, but it wasn't really.

Speaking of college, when I started my undergrad degree, I started writing again. I took a couple of writing classes and added a writing minor. My classes were all about the technical craft of writing, and I learned about what makes stories work and what doesn't.

I thought about blogging during undergrad, I thought it would be such a fun and quirky thing to do that had never been done before. A blog about college life??? Groundbreaking!! But shockingly, literally, every private liberal arts school girl blogs about her unique life story that is exactly the same as everyone else’s.

Another shocker is that after spending all week writing academic papers and creative essays I quite literally didn’t feel like writing another word. I loved telling stories and writing papers, don't get me wrong. But, I didn’t have the emotional margin to write anything else.

So, again, why am I starting this blog now? I’m starting this blog because I graduated in December, and I miss telling stories. In college, I learned that I actually really love writing. I like reading writing, I like reading books about writing, and I like writing about writing. It's a writing love fest over here.

Another reason that I am blogging is that I have OPINIONS. Tons of them, and I am determined to share them with the world. I thought about starting a podcast, but then I remembered that when I created my voicemail recording, I actually had to take a break because I VIOLENTLY hate the sound of my voice.

So then I tried Tiktok, but currently, my mom has more views and likes than any of my own videos so blogging is all that is left for me. I’m kidding, I still make Tiktoks, and they're all terrible.

I wish I could say what type of content I am going to blog about, but I honestly have NO idea. I really am just going to blog about my life and the things that I think about. Right now, my plan is to kinda just write one blog that's more fun and conversational and one blog that's more intellectual. Hopefully, that keeps my writing skills sharp for Grad school...

So if that sounds cool, subscribe! I have NO idea when the next post will come out, or what it will be about. But, I do know that I am stoked to share my story.