Jump!

This is not the best picture of me ever taken.

I have just jumped off an old train bridge in Okanagan Falls, BC. I am generally tentative about jumping into water - I'm always afraid I'll lose a contact - but after my four-year-old nephew did it, well then I really didn't have a choice, did I? It was ten feet or so above the water and it looks like I just took a run at it. Grace is my middle name, folks.

I know you're probably thinking: What does this have to do with anything?

I thought of this picture today while I was planning for my weekend. I'm going to Toronto to attend BlissDom Canada 2012. It's a gathering of bloggers and writers from around the country. There are sessions designed to help us think about where we want to our blogs to go and how to get it there. Mostly though, it's about being inspired by all of the fabulous people who will be there too.

Even though I've had this blog for several years, I haven't paid too much attention to it until recently. I think I finally reached that place where I could "own" my opinions, where I wasn't afraid of being challenged, where I thought I had stories worth sharing. I started spending more time on it. Then I realized that if I was spending so much time on it, I should be more committed to its success. That's why I am spending a lot of our family's money to head to Toronto, to go to a conference where I won't know a single soul, and hoping upon hope that when my husband asks me if it was worth it I will be able to say, without hesitation, YES!

There's a lot of faith that goes into attending one of these conferences, at least for me.

I know that I will meet some amazing people. I know that I will learn a lot about blogging and writing. I have an obligation to my boss to return with a signed copy of 1982 by Jian Ghomeshi.* There is also the very real possibility of me making a fool out of myself at the Costume party on Saturday night, having never met a karaoke machine I didn't like. But where it all will lead, well that remains to be seen.

My train bridge awaits.

Jump!


*As witnessed in the following Twitter exchange last Friday (get out your glasses, it's there):