Weekword

Emma picked this week's word: Catharsis
I believe that a lot of people who blog associate their writing with catharsis. I certainly do.

When I started writing this blog, which was back in 1999 on (I think!) a Tripod site, only a few of my friends were reading it, to my knowledge, and I used to write some very personal things here. I definitely used it as a passive-agressive tool a few times and there's a level of detail in those posts that I wouldn't dream of including these days. The internet is too big and too public now to risk baring my soul; although my old blogs are still online, my reasoning is that the sheer size of the WWW keeps them basically hidden in plain sight.

In a way, then, blogging is not longer as cathartic as it once was: or maybe it is just in a different way. If I try to keep blogging through times of personal angst, I find myself concentrating hard on what I CAN say which often reminds me about what's good in my life.

If I feel like a good old emotional cleanse here are the other things I do -
1. Cry. A lot. In private - I generally find crying all the way home from work (45 mins) to be about right. It has to be in private because then it doesn't have to be justified to anybody else.
2. Talk angrily about the thing that has upset me using a lot of creative swearing.
3. Smoke. I know it's not very cleansing but it makes me calmer, and is all the more effective for the fact I'm not a regular smoker anymore.
4. Bake. It's very methodical and I have control over it. And there is a sugary treat to look forward to at the end.

Sorry I was late to the party this week (although I'm sneakily backdating my post so it looks like I was on time!). Don't forget to go and look at all the other entries this week, and if you want to take part next week go to Heather's blog on Monday and leave her a comment.