Also, it serves as a kind of journal. Already, I’m going back and reading old posts and refreshing my memories of things that happened. Still, it is not a complete picture of my life during that time as I censored myself for a couple reasons. One, we were told to assume that the KNB were monitoring our internet activities, so I toned down some of my criticism and left out anything that I thought could bring harm to anyone in my circle. Two, I naturally censor myself on very personal topics like the extent of the depression I suffered there.
It was something I was very committed to, making sure I made regular updates so that people were never in the dark for long. Those first few posts were a jumble of initial reactions and thoughts to being in a strange place, but over time my entries became longer and more cohesive as I had more time to sit down and think them through. I was especially appreciative when people commented or sent emails indicating that they were reading. It helped maintain a sense of connection to my world back home.
It was very natural that many of my posts were about gender roles in Turkmen society. It’s hard to ignore something like that when you were raised the way I was. I didn’t expect the blog to take on an almost feminist focus. I still don’t think of it as a feminist blog per se, it’s just that I’m a feminist so I’m going to write from that perspective. Just like it’s not a Christian blog per se, but, again, that’s the perspective I’m coming from.
It’s been really fun this past year to write about life in the States. Fun and therapeutic. In a couple weeks, I’ll write a post about my one year anniversary of re-entry and go into more detail about some of the struggles I’ve had. But for now, let me just say what a joy it’s been to write and know that I have a loyal following of readers. To all my readers, from those of you who were there at the very beginning, to those of you who are just discovering my blog, thank you for reading. I hope to continue for a long time.