An introduction to "Today, I learned..."

Today, I learned that I'm going to start a blog. 

If you've known me a while, you might know that I've had two previous iterations of a blog - one required by Dr. Alisa Agozzino's social media class way back in 2009 (related, how can that have been so long ago?!) and the one that you're currently reading that had just two posts back in 2011 when I (again) attempted to restart blogging while recovering from knee surgery (I've pulled those two posts to save us both the embarrassment, but for the right price could be persuaded to allow them to see the light of day again.)

So, I guess what I really learned today is that I'm going to restart a blog. Not only am I going to do it, but I'm worthy of doing it.

I've sort of always thought that blogs had to be written by "experts." I follow several blogs and entities on various social media channels that are written or administrated by various experts in their fields. These experts are everything I could ever hope to be and will probably never become (I'm nothing if not realistic) - A-circuit equestrians, elite marathoners, Pinterest-perfect handy(wo)men, five star chefs, CEOs and comedians. All worthy of following, in hopes of emulating; we know the old theory about needing to surround oneself with greatness in order to be great.

But here's the thing: each of these "experts" always has something I don't and may not ever have, something that always seems to offset the "perfect" equation laid out by them on their blogs or captured in their Instagram accounts and fed to their Facebook and Twitter feeds, making it very near impossible to replicate. Whether it's an unlimited budget for the best bloodlines you can engineer into a horse, endless hours available for training, beaucoup bucks and spaces for executing DIY projects and restaurant-worthy recipes, or sky-high IQs and snappy wits to rival the best of SNL regulars, something in their way of going just always seems unattainable and unrelateable.

And that's okay. I don't mean to sound whiny and I certainly don't intend to undermine the talents and skills of those aforementioned experts. We all have our intrinsic gifts that we should develop to the best of our abilities. However, I would also argue that some of us are simply average by many standards, but also that that doesn't have to be a bad thing. Sometimes, our resources are limited by the lives we choose to live and the fact that many of us are simply spread too thin these days.

The important thing - regardless of resources or occupation or income - is that we are each experts in our own lives. We alone have first-hand, empirical knowledge of our own day-to-day comings and goings, what we envision for ourselves and our loved ones, what we want to do more and less of, what we care about and what can go fly a kite.

Today, I declare myself an expert at being Natalyn Giverson Worley. Today, I declare myself an expert at learning to be the best NGW known to man and woman, the world over. Today, I declare myself an expert of my own thoughts and feelings, and the freedom to put myself in writing.

I have several New Year's resolutions - to read and write more, to be fitter (particularly in preparation for moving my horse, pictured below, up to our new home in Minnesota from our old home in South Carolina), to grow my side business as a Rodan+Fields consultant, to be more deliberate and mindful in my relationship with my husband, to obtain either a second part-time job (preferably in the horse industry, in addition to my current part-time retail gig) or a full-time public relations/communications job, to be craftier (especially relearning to cross-stitch, which my mother taught me as a child and I've since forgotten, and to either crochet or knit because when the zombie apocalypse strikes, I don't want to be running around in the buff), etc. etc. etc.

So, in the spirit of being an expert at my own life but also in holding myself accountable to learning and growing, as well as my resolution to write more (though I've previously resolved to write more in actual, beautiful notebooks with purple pen as additional motivation to no avail), I'm proud to introduce you to a new series on this here Natalyn Now blog entitled, "Today, I learned..." I won't attempt to fool either of us into believing that this blog will be comprised of literally daily posts and, in reality, the posts will probably be more like, "A day or two ago, I learned...", but, at a minimum, I'm hoping to learn three to five new somethings per week and write about them.

Topics may vary (if you've already forgotten how wide-ranging my interests are, please refer back to paragraph nine), depending on what I've done/attempted to do that day. One day might be a new recipe (whether successful or not), the next might be something to do with my side gig, followed by a training exercise after that and maybe a public relations/professional development nugget the day after that. 

This blog will probably be many things - scattered in both topic and train of thought, ignored by many, maybe even hated by some, and that's okay. I also hope it will be a source of relief for the myriad thoughts and feelings inside my own head, as well as usually funny, occasionally poignant, maybe even insightful every now and then.

Above all else, though, I hope what you read here is relateable and that neither of us ever forgets that I'm just your typical almost-28-year-old trying to get through life and whatever the future might hold in the happiest, most positive and productive way possible.

While each of my varied interests may not particularly speak to you, what I hope you will be able to relate to is, at least, the "try," the gift that is our own unique life experience and the confidence to try your own life as much as possible. Because "fifty years from now, when you're looking back at your life, don't you want to be able to say you had the guts to get in the car?"

Looking forward to learning with you.

xo,

Natalyn