My youngest son is over seven months old! There’s so much that I haven’t shared. There was a time when I felt really free to be open, frank, and vulnerable when blogging. Then I let the anxiety that I experienced upon moving get to me. I let social media get to me. I underestimated the identity crisis I would have once I was separated from what was always home.
I got out of the habit of blogging because I started getting paid work to blog for someone else’s business. I was journaling every morning a la The Artist’s Way in a paper journal. I was sharing my photographs, creative pursuits, and travel through social media. It felt like I was sharing enough, even if it was on someone else’s platform. The paper journaling has served me well; I’m able to gather my thoughts without fear of judgement, organize my future, and look back on my past.
But what blogging does for me is a little different. While I can have a train-of-thought writing experience in private on paper, blogging organizes those thoughts. I’m then able to share those thoughts with others, with the potential to add some value, be it small, to their lives.
I hate how much time I’ve spent doubting myself, talking down to myself and waiting for peer approval to give myself the freedom to share. Every year, I talk about sharing more. It was my goal in 2018, and I fell short.
I’m seven months in to being a mom of two. I wholly underestimated how having two children would knock me off my feet after being a mother for a decade. I really did. As only children, both of my boys would be a breeze. But that’s not the case.
In the chaos of taking care of my children, my marriage, my home, my dog (honestly, he’s mostly forgotten) I have had the hardest time taking care of myself in a way that doesn’t ask too much of my husband, who is having his own hard time with self care. Sometimes self care still feels like work. Exercise feels good, but I need to do it because I need to get healthy. Cleaning feels good but I need to do it or my mental health will suffer. Getting out and meeting with other moms feels awesome, but I need to do it for my infant’s social development. Taking care of myself starts to feel like another obligation, another task to take care of.
Maybe what I really need is to come back to this space, right here. To organize my thoughts. To share. To use my itty bitty platform to shout out into the abyss, “THIS!” to wait, and listen, for over the pond, across the mountains, to hear s little voice in the distance say, “SAME!” Or to say, “I MADE THIS!” To pause, only to hear back: “I think I can, too!”
I’m resolving to make the time to share. To stop feeling like I haven’t “earned” writing on my personal blog because I “should” be doing more freelance work, or cleaning, or taking care of everyone else first. This is the one space that is completely mine, and I do it for me.
In other words: Hi, I’m back. I have so much to share.
