Bring Back the Words

Ginger over at Ramble Ramble came up with a really fun idea for a weekly prompt and link up called Bring Back the Words.  I love the idea because I have been struggling with what to write about here.  I'll take the kick in the pants until inspiration comes.

This week's prompt is to discuss why I started blogging.  I'm going to take a slightly different approach on this topic and talk about why I started using Twitter, because Twitter changed things for me much more than blogging has so far.

I started my first Twitter account in 2008 shortly after Ian was born.  I had heard some things about Twitter and thought it might be interesting.  After about a week, I gave up and just ignored my Twitter for quite some time.  Then due to a new promotion initiative at work, I was told I may have to post to a work Twitter account occasionally to promote our services.  So, I reactivated my account and started tweeting so that I could get an idea of how it worked.

First I started following bloggers and writers that I liked and commented to them now and then.  It wasn't long before some of those people, that I admired so much for their writing, started to tweet back to me when I made comments to them.  Finding that Twitter was a community was a real turning point and I started to really enjoy using Twitter.  It was so organic how my little Twitter community grew, it wasn't much different than meeting friends in person.  Someone I was following with would lead me to a cool person they were following, and so on until we had a group of people who all followed each other.  It felt so great to have a place where I could tweet about my life, and people would tweet back with comments, suggestions, or just a simple, "I'm there for you."

Eventually, a single tweet comment I made about The Hitchhiker's Guide to the Galaxy prompted three of those friends to read the book along with me and then we discussed it when we were all done.  After that chat we decided to read another book and another, creating an online book club we named Jazz Hands Book Club, or #JHBC.  A few others from our online community joined in and now, two years later, we are 8 members strong and all very good friends.  We are now two weeks out from meeting up in person for a girls weekend away.  These ladies are some of the best friends are girl could ask for.  I'm so very lucky to have them in my life, supporting me, making me laugh, and sharing together.

Making that decision to give Twitter a chance was one of the best decisions I have ever made.  I didn't know it at the time, but I really craved that community and sharing that I was lacking in my life.  When I started out I was a new mom, going back to work, and feeling somewhat lost in all the newness of my life.  Now, I know that no matter what life throws my way I have people who will support or celebrate with me, and they are just a few clicks away.