A simple question: how has blogging changed my life? The folks over at Brazen Careerist have a contest going, and the winner gets a trip to SXSW. While the trip would be cool in it's own right, the question itself took precedent. Blogging? Changed my life? The screen has been blinking in the background for about 3 days now, with sentences added and removed. Over and over. Changed my life? Blogging? Then it hit me.

Blogging hasn't changed my life, at least not in the way you'd think. Looking back, I've blogged in some way, shape, or form since 2000. I had a LiveJournal that documented my green hair and drunken rants of my early 20's. I dabbled with a few Blogger.com blogs, but never got beyond one or two months before losing interest. Heck, I had a life to lead, dammit. Not to mention, who the heck actually reads the stuff?

So a little less than 2 years ago, I started this blog. Why? Because I built a webserver. Then, once it was done, I had to put something, you know, on it. So I installed Movable Type, played around with a layout, then got started. It was, well, uneventful. My first post was about bucking the trend of "labels" and how I didn't fit into any one category. One could say that still applies. But back to my point: blogging hasn't changed my life. My life is going to change, regardless. Here's the rundown:

• August 1st 2003 - Got sober
• September 23rd 2003 - Turned 23 years old
• October 2003 - Moved to a new city (left the suburbs)
• October 21st, 2004 - Met the woman who would later become my wife
• August 21st, 2006 - Bought my first house
• October 13th, 2006 - Got married
• August 1st, 2007 - My son was born
• January 1st, 2008 - Was promoted to a management-level position at my firm

Would all of that happened if I didn't blog? Most likely. Did my blogging change the outcome of any of those events? Probably not. My life, like everyone else's life, happens. But blogging, for me, has been the vehicle to talk about it, to share about it, and to be able to look back and see who I was, and what I've become as I grow up. It's been the mechanism that allows me to be part of a bigger conversation, and a whole universe of people who are going different parts of their life, and participate in their conversations. Because as much as I'd like to think I'm a loner, I'm not. I am a social creature, and blogging has made it OK to be that creature, in the skin I really have, which is really what I've always wanted.

Editor's Note: This post was part of a contest in which Brazen Bloggers were asked to write about how blogging affected their lives. For a full recap and to read the rest of the submissions read this post.