(image from "FreeFoto.com," apparently copyright-free or at least free for this usage of it)

It's my eighth blogiversary!

I remember my eighth year (I mean, of my life) as being a fairly happy year: I had some skills (reading, basic math, I could do basic hand-sewing, I could crochet, I was able to identify a few plants and bugs). I could climb trees, I was fairly good at kickball, I was excellent at hide-and-seek. I was old enough to have passed most of the stormy tantrummyness of being a younger child, but was not yet stuck in the teenaged years. (My teenaged years were not so bad, actually, with the exception of the thirteenth.)

I would have been in third grade; third grade was a fairly happy year. Mrs. Irish was my homeroom teacher, she had red hair and was nice and was interested in science. I went to school in the big old Hudson Elementary - a big old, three-story brick school (not unlike the school shown in "A Christmas Story"). It had hissing radiators and I remember climbing up the stairs - all the way up - to my homeroom in the corner (I think it was the northeast corner, if I'm not misremembering) of the third floor.

I also remember quite fondly doing spelling words. The way they did it was they paired us off - I think I often paired off with a girl named Becky (? maybe, maybe it was Beth) who had a similar imagination and sense of humor to me. And the idea was, you learned these words by putting them into sentences. We had a long, on-going story involving Little Red Riding Hood, the Big Bad Wolf (who actually was not so bad, at least in our story), the Three Little Pigs, the Woodman, and Red Riding Hood's Grandma. I remember we were actually allowed to go sit on the steps - or out in the hall - to do the work, and how we would make ourselves giggle over the silly stories. And how we could pick up the "next installment" the week after the previous one.

it's funny that I remember that all these years later. I think it's because it's such a happy memory, me just being turned loose to sort of riff on words and be creative.

And really, that's what I do here, I guess. I really like playing with words. I have a pretty large vocabulary (Probably those early years of the Red Riding Hood Adventures helped with that, and all the SSR (silent sustained reading) I did in school). And words are fun to play with.

I've said on several occasions that I found the craft blogs where people actually wrote - wrote about the process or about their inspiration for a project or their feelings or their lives - were far more interesting to me than the blogs that were either just catalogs of finished products, or, as is the case in some cases I've seen, just really advertising for the designer's patterns or for the yarns they sell. (That's not to say I don't enjoy blogs written by shop owners - I regularly read the Simply Socks Yarn Company's owner's blog, because she writes about more than just, "Hey, this new yarn that knitters love to fight over is coming into stock in my shop in two days, get your F5 keys ready!")

And as a few of the nice commenters I've got in the past couple days have said, I guess other people like my playing with words as well.

And you know, the eighth birthday of my little blog brings up another issue: the whole issue of popularity. It seems to me that third grade was probably the last year (sadly) where popularity was not an issue; where I really didn't care what other people thought of me. I had my friends, I liked my friends. Like other little kids I got teased, but I don't remember the teasing as becoming particularly harsh until later on. (Thirteen. Thirteen, in my experience, is a horrible age to be if you are a sensitive sort. The people around you are mature enough to know what to say to push your buttons, but are not yet mature enough to have developed the tact not to say the very worst things. [and sadly, some folks never quite develop that tact or empathy.])

I don't know. I think from time to time about popularity, my seeming desire for it, and the fact that I never have been, really, truly, popular.

I remember once as a kid, telling my mother (tearfully, I think) that I wished I was popular at school - or rather, "I wish everyone liked me for who I was." Even then I knew that changing myself to be more popular - even if I would succeed - would be a hollow victory.

But really, I would like to be popular. I would like to feel well-liked. (Oh, I know I am, at least among the people who really know me). I think a lot of that is the shadow of the little kid, who somehow changed from a happy and fairly secure 8 year old to a 12 and 13 year old who felt that none of her peers cared about her, and that, in fact, she existed mostly as a target for their scorn.

Sad, really, how you can let junior high experiences serve as somewhat of a template for the rest of your life. (Junior high should be abolished! I really think so some days. It's a miserable time - it was for me, it was for my brother, it seems to have been for the kids in my Youth Group.)

So, though I still carry around with me the memories of the funny clever 8 year old who could put herself and her friends into gales of giggles with silly stories, I also carry around the 13 year old who ate lunch alone most days after her supposed-BFF got invited to join the "popular table."

It's funny, looking back, I really wasn't unpopular ALL of my childhood, though when I was, it sure colored my worldview, making me think that there had to be something wrong with me because people either teased me or ignored me.

And you know, I still feel that from time to time. Part of it is that somewhere, I have internalized the idea that good = popular, and therefore, the corollary, if something is not popular, it must not be good.

Hrm. I don't always feel that way about books and movies: I've experienced a few popular pieces that either did not move me in the way they seemed to move others, or, of which I said outright, "What? *I* could do better than that!"

But you know, it occurred to me the other day, another thought: Perhaps longing for popularity is a form of ingratitude.

After all, I have friends. Longing for more means I overlook those I have. I get a few comments now and then. Longing for more means I am not appreciating those I get.

The grass always seems greener on the other side. It probably isn't, actually. I thank my lucky stars I've never had a comment-stalker, or someone who was openly and brazenly rude to me, or who did excessive spamming, or any of the problems that some of the wildly popular knitbloggers have to deal with.

And maybe, really, since I tend to celebrate peace and quiet in my everyday life - and I really am truly thankful that I don't have any "ex drama" in my life. And that I have managed to avoid most bad forms of trouble. That my general reticence and tendency to be able to imagine the consequences of something before I do it have kept me a life that is peaceful and quiet: my only dealing with the police was having to report a sprinkler stolen out of my front yard.

And so maybe I should just transfer that gratitude for peace and quiet to how I feel like the blog: I may be in a little backwater here, but you know, there's a pretty weeping willow that grows on the bank, and there's enough shade, and once in a while there is a family of ducks that comes by. And maybe, if I'm very lucky, a deer comes out of the forest to drink at the little backwater pool.

Maybe trying to be out fighting the current of popularity is really not all it's cracked up to be.


Oh, and another thing that eight brings up: the Magic Eight Ball. Let's ask it a little question:

"Is this blog going to continue?"



Eight Ball says: "Signs point to YES."

Thanks for reading, thanks for commenting, thanks for your support. I probably wouldn't still be doing this without the nice readers and commenters I get.