A new design for a new year. Naturally something simple but this time defiantly non-blue. The design was inspired by Issue 4 of ReadyMade Magazine. After collecting and reading every issue of this little, hip, DIY craft mag for two years, this design is the first thing I've attempted to do creatively. I'm not sure that's what they intended.

I also took this time to update the About and Links pages, adding newly discovered blogs that I find myself visiting frequently.

During the redesign, I fucked up the archive stuff, as I end up doing during every redesign. I eventually fixed what was wrong (Okay, technically the permalinks are still not working, but I'm tired of screwing with it. I'll figure it out another day.), republished everything and checked several archive pages to make sure everything was working. I was struck by the fact I have over two years of weblog content. Two years. It doesn't seem like it's been that long, however this is the fifth or sixth time I've changed the template.

I started to read through some of the pages and I started to get an uneasy feeling. Not only revisiting the past filled with people I no longer have in my life and other sorted messes, but from the stuff I wrote about. Or rather the stuff I didn't write about.

Sometimes I feel like such a fraud. This blog is a perfect way to channel some of the shit that goes on in my life, but I rarely do. I don't know what I'm afraid of. People reading about the pain and sadness I've gone through? People knowing about my true feelings about love and loneliness? People discovering how truly awful and cruel I can be? People knowing how truly sweet and compassionate I can also be? People reading about the real me?

Or maybe it has nothing to do with anyone else but me. Maybe I am just afraid of what I will think of me. I'm just afraid of laying myself out there, bare and exposed. Heart on my sleeve for all to see.

And then I feel stupid even bringing this up in the first place. What do I have to whine about? I've gone through life's crap but others have gone through so much more.

After my last fiasco with resolutions, a dreadful, misguided attempt, I vowed that my resolutions would not be glibly chosen for a new year only to have them forgotten and unfulfilled by spring's end. But rather to make resolutions for life. I think it's time for a new one, even though it is January.

I guess it boils down to this: I need to be more honest within these pages. Not for you, but for me, although I do appreciate you stopping by and reading on. I need to be able to look at my life and not say "what a mess" and place it in the back of the shelf where it will be forgotten behind other things. But instead to say "what a beautiful mess" and embrace it for what it is.

Mine.