Things that make me happy #5: Social Networking.

The nice thing about blogging is that even if I disappear for a week, my blog and all my readers are still here when I get back. When I started blogging, it was nearly four years ago. I’ll celebrate my fourth anniversary next month, on July 12. I didn’t know many of the other diabetes bloggers, and I actually didn’t really read that many either. There was Amy and Kerri, Sandra and Shannon, and Tek and Violet and a few others who don’t blog anymore. When I started blogging, it was a way for me to rant about diabetes and harp away on things I hated about the disease. Now this blog has become so much more. It’s about my life as a whole – not just this one little aspect of me that people seem to so quickly associate me with. And for good reason too! I spent most of high school and college as one of the leading online “uncertified” diabetes experts, working for Diabetes Station, then Diabetes Teen Talk and then dLife. Whew!

But now blogging is about what I feel social network is really about: people… experiences, culture, learning, exposing myself to things that I don’t always get in my day-to-day life sitting in a cubicle at work. My dad (hi Dad!) always associated blogging with being like a little soapbox where people, some of whom have no idea what the heck they’re talking about, can rant and rave all day long. And this is true, technically. But I think the real usefulness of blogging isn’t coming from the fact I talk about how much I waking up at 74 mg/dl (and how gulping down 2 tablespoons of honey before hopping in the shower really isn’t all that) and how doctors are annoying or strangers on the street are rude or how I don’t like having to remember to clip my pump onto my jeans when I’m running late for work.

The point is that all of this has made it a lot more fun and enjoyable to grow as a human being, and that learning about experiences (diabetes or otherwise) has made me, I think, a more thoughtful and curious person. Blogs, Twitter and Facebook allow me to communicate directly to the person, and more often than not, you get a response! That’s pretty amazing, considering just a few years ago, the most you could get was a letter to the editor which elicited zero response.

I don’t like talking at people. I like talking with people. You see that comment button at the top of this post? You should click on it sometime. Tell me what you think. Even if it has nothing to do with this post. Or, if you’re shy, write me an email. I always write back.