Last summer, I got an amazing opportunity to write for Modern Parent Online and I jumped at the chance to free my friends from being subjected to my every thought and feeling over email and instead force people I didn’t even know to read what I was thinking about all the time. I looked it at like free therapy, and it came at the perfect time for me. The beauty was that I would be completely supported by the team in place, so other than the fear of exposing all of my inner-most feelings to the masses, there was great security in knowing I was safe.

It reminds a lot of when your parents first let you have your own key to your house. You probably wore it around your neck or tucked in your shoe, and you felt so nervous the first time you slipped it in the lock, just wondering if someone would be on the other side of the door waiting for you, as they always had before. And of course, your mother was right there, praising you for walking straight home from the bus (little did you know, she had been watching from the window the whole time) and being so grown-up and responsible; except you still had the safety net all around you.

And then came your first apartment, your first real place of your own, the time that you would really find out about whether you were going to sink or swim. This is what my website is going to be for me. I am getting my first real apartment, and I am responsible for everything. Sure, there is essentially a maintenance man I can call if something breaks, but this is my chance to see if day after day, night after night, I can do this thing, if I can really take care of myself. Do I have what it takes to be a full-time writer, one who has thoughts and puts them down somewhere right away, as opposed to saving them up for a weekly column. Make no mistake here, I am still doing that column. I love that column, it is my place, my home away home, the place where I go when I need extra blankets on my bed or someone to tell me that they have got it all taken care of for me. I love the team there, the safety in numbers, the camarederie we all feel for a job well done, the support we give each other as writers, but I needed something else, too. I needed some freedom, some independence, I needed to jump out of the nest and see if I do in fact fly.

Oh, and I need to be able to do things like live blog Madonna’s halftime show at the Superbowl, because seriously, y’all, I can’t sit on those thoughts and keep them all to myself.