The last thing I expected from blogging …

I’ve been blogging since 2008. Originally it was an easy way to keep in touch with all my friends and family while I was on a month-long trip to India. I also thought that some day it might be fun, and interesting, to do some travel writing so I did have a bit of an ulterior motive — it was like a dress rehearsal of sorts.

Once I returned home and found myself back in the daily grind, travel ended up on the back burner. But I was hooked on blogging and tried several — I blogged about advertising, I blogged about my experiences as a film festival junkie and I blogged (ranted) about all my frustrations. Nothing really stuck, I’d burn out on the topic, inertia would set in and that would be that.

Then, a little over four years ago, I woke up one day with the bright idea that I’d write a new post every day for a year, no particular topic, whatever popped into my head. And here I still am, although “daily” became “weekly” once the year was up.

By the time I started the “365” blog I was serious about it. I had found my voice, knew I had something I wanted to say, knew I’d become a better writer by writing every day, wanted to see if my writing would resonate and if the blog could lead to some editorial writing.

What I never expected was that along the way, I’d make friends.

Not friends in the conventional sense. We don’t talk on the phone, we don’t meet for brunch or lunch or dinner, we don’t go to movies or the theatre or even on walks. In some cases, we don’t even know what each other looks like.

Despite all that, we know a helluva lot about each other. We’ve shared good and bad news, we’ve shared hopes and dreams, ideas, advice, fears, frustrations, future plans and past regrets. We support and encourage each other, commiserate, celebrate and egg each other on.

Strange as it may sound, I feel close to these men and women even though, with just a couple of exceptions, we’ve never met. They’re my “blogging buddies.” I don’t mean the almost 45,000 people who read my blog, I mean the dozen or so who are regular readers, regular commenters, the ones who’ve been with me (and vice versa) since the beginning. The ones with whom I have short, but “real” conversations. The ones who, if we lived in the same city, I’m pretty sure I’d hang out with.

I feel pretty confident saying that because despite the differences in our ages, what we do for a living and where in the world we live, we have a lot in common (beyond blogging) and we enjoy our interactions.

But the best part is, I can count on having coffee dates in a lot of different cities and countries. And that is pretty damn cool!