This post from No Pasa Nada prompted me to think about The Modern Gal’s evolution. No, that’s not true. I think about the MG’s evolution a lot, that blog post is prompting me to write about it.

When I started this blog 3 1/2ish years ago, I did so because I was lonely. I was working odd hours in a city where I didn’t live and never had face-to-face time with my friends. So I reached out to them through my blog in a very superficial way. I blogged twice a day, mostly sharing the things I was coveting from the Gap or J. Crew or World Market at the time or analyzing whatever Bravo TV show I was obsessed with at the time.

As time went on and I connected with like-minded bloggers and the odd hours in the city where I didn’t live dragged on, I blogged more about my personal life while trying my darndest to keep my true identity from being revealed for fear of backlash from my company. As my blog changed, I changed with it. I became more sure of who I was. My confidence grew. And instead of falling apart when a major life event took place, I became stronger.

Was The Modern Gal the cause of all that or just a symptom of it? I don’t know, but I suspect a bit of both. As you grow up, you’re warned about the trials and tribulations of being a teen and surviving college, but you’re never really warned about the difficult transition of becoming a young adult to an adult — the transition of moving from a place where working for a living is tough, change often sucks and everything seems hard to a place where working for a living can be rewarding, change is just a part of life and everything seems as it should be. I think The Modern Gal was my safety net during that transition. As No Pasa Nada did for Heather, The Modern Gal gave me a place to work out my emotions and practice being a strong, confident woman until I actually was a strong, confident woman.

I don’t blog about the items I covet anymore, because I don’t shop as much as I used to or pay attention to what’s new in the stores (I do, however, wish these shoes were on my 8.5-sized feet right now but I realize that ridiculous amount of money needs to go to savings or toward paying some wedding expenses that keep piling up). I don’t blog about Bravo TV shows because they’re collecting dust on my DVR as I spend time hanging out with the Modern Love Machine or reading or working out. I don’t blog about emotions or changes that I’m struggling with, because, well, I guess I’m not really struggling with any of those anymore. I’m able to handle difficult emotions and changes on my own without the help of the MG these days.

All of that is partially why I don’t blog as frequently anymore, but it’s not the full reason why. I have plenty of topics on my mind — mostly my thoughts about hot-button issues: women’s reproductive rights and abortion, the fight against unions and demonization of the term ‘labor,’ rights for LGBTQ, etc. And religion. Ohhhh, religion. I haven’t written about the social issues because I don’t think I’m in a place in my life where I can write about them, and I don’t write about religion because I don’t feel like a lot of people want to read about it. I also acknowledge that the cloak of anonymity which I enjoyed early in this blog’s life is no longer around.

I mention religion because I’m having a bit of religious renaissance, I guess. I’ve grown more serious in my faith lately both by my own choosing and by being confronted with figuring out why both getting married and getting married in a Catholic church were so important to me. My faith has grown from more than just something I identify with and a thing I to something that’s a very intricate part of who I am and something that’s constantly on my mind. I’ll probably end up breaking my no-writing-about-religion rule, but I’m not quite there yet either. I feel passionate about all of these topics on my mind, but I’m not ready to handle the discussion and discord that my blogging about them could create.

All of this is to acknowledge that I’ve changed and so has my blog, and I appreciate all of you who have stuck with me and with the MG over the course of the years. I and the MG continue to change. I have no plans of reinventing this blog ever. The MG has become bigger than myself and will gradually go where she wants to. In the mean time, I continue to write mainly to appease myself, but I do hope I give you something you can appreciate from time to time as well.