Nicheless

"What's your niche?" It’s interesting how many times I have been asked that. Most of the time, it has pertained to photography. “Well, you need to find your niche,” they would say. “They” often believe that when you choose less, you are more likely to excel in that area. It would be like honing a craft. Yes, I can say that I believe this to be true in some cases. Take restaurants, for example. Limit the entrées. Perfect the dishes. I get it. Less can be more, why, sure it can. What “they” don’t know, though, is that I have been all over the place since birth. And I’m ok with that. You will find, if you ask me, when it comes to photography, for instance, that I take photos of everything. From newborns to weddings to portraits. From birthday parties to pets to sporting events. And if I want to take pictures of my ding dang fence, then I will. I don’t need a niche. I don’t need a specialty. It took me a long time to realize that I don’t need to do anything that “they” tell me I should.

I never want to feel like I have to fit in a box that someone else creates.

So, when I started throwing around the idea of writing, the niche thing came up yet again. These five words were constantly asked: “What will you write about?” I knew that I had outgrown all other forums. I knew that I was done writing only to and for myself. That my life really was relatively entertaining. All of the sudden, after spending far too much time trying to craft a formula for what I wanted this to look like, I realized that I didn’t know. I truly didn’t know what I was going to write about. That’s exactly it. What I was going to write about either hadn’t happened yet or hadn’t been thought of.

When I stop trying to plan everything, something beautiful happens.

I decided to consult my eight-year-old self. What would she say? In third grade, I started, what “they” would later call, a blog titled “Erica Talks.” It was random. No niche. I merely wrote about what was on my mind or what my life looked like at a daily level. It seems that I haven’t shut up since then. Ask my mother, who hasn’t gotten a word in since a Tuesday afternoon in 1994. For going on four years now, I have been talking about finding a place with more of an opportunity to write and explore. So, all that to say, I will write about whatever I want on here. I have a lot to say. And it’s about more than one thing. I will tell stories, share experiences, give unwarranted advice, complain, publish poetry, ponder life questions, and, once again, if I want to talk about a tree limb in iambic pentameter, I will. If you were that 7th or 8th person asking about the focus of my blog, I’m sorry. I don’t quite remember who it was, but I do remember that there were expletives and an unfair vocal volume. “It’s not always about you,” “they” tell me, and to that, I say, in regards to this, that’s exactly what it’s all about: me.