Girl in the Afternoon

I've been personal blogging for as long as my digits have known how to type, and my wordpress is really my baby. It was there for me to listen, to sympathize, to be a blank page when I needed it most. It was there when I thought no one else would be that for me. And I've grown immeasurably from that, and I owe a lot to it, really. I know it sounds not...sane -- insane -- but I know it was God-given, to be there to help me find myself when I was hopeless, to remind me of what grounds me, who defines me, and what I love doing. It reminded me of how much I love to write and extract the beauty out of everything I see. And I've been caught up on reading all of my old posts. All of them.

That's the thing with me. It's near impossible for me to arbitrarily stop somewhere. If I find a new blog (which I can do pretty much everyday), I have to go back and back and back, and I want to go as far back as I can to see what I've missed during my time of ignorance, but at some point, I have to pull my head out of the virtual pages and say, "Enough. Live -- right now. Come back to the present, and look forward."

And I've been so stuck in the blogosphere and things like pinterest (I'm a woman possessed), that I'm in danger of losing my own point of view, not only on visual life, but on real life. I typed this to myself:

“You’re so busy looking at beauty through other people’s eyes, you’ve forgotten how to use your own.”

"love, esther" was a one-of-a-kind period of my life, but I'm in a different and equally exciting place now. All of these different reasons and circumstances have converged, and I can't think of a more appropriate time for the start of a new blog. This is my online little black book of notes, scribbles, photos, excerpts, half-baked ideas, sprinkles, and anything else that inspires me. I decided to title it "Girl in the Afternoon" because as I get older, I'm sleeping earlier and consequently waking up earlier (yes, I'm being completely serious), and my writing/inspiration time has been moved up to the early afternoon around one or two. Coupled with the fact that I've always tried to have the one cup of coffee I allow myself around that time, it's the prime writing situation.

It's a special part of the day, when the morning haze has worn off, the half-caff has kicked in, and there's a clarity unaffected by the tired dimness of evening. And haloed in the light of a just-waning sun, everything is beautiful.

(photo via pinterest)