Blogging is Stupid

I'd be lying if this thought hadn't crossed by mind one or two, or eight thousand times since I've begun blogging long before I was a teacher, or a mother.  It often comes when I've let a few weeks or months go by without posting anything.  I started this blog (well, it was called kindalikeoprah back then- if you can't remember the story, it was a poor decision made hastily after too much bolognese and red wine, much too late at night) when I was just newly married, unemployed and had no idea what I was doing with my life.  Though we are approaching our seventh wedding anniversary, I've taught high school for several years, had a child and decided to dedicate my days to teach her instead of 127 grumpy teenagers, I still feel like I have no idea what I am doing with my life.  So, why invite you all in to watch me flounder around aimlessly? Make rookie mistakes in marriage, motherhood, friendships, conflicts and the like?

There a few simple answers.

1.  I need the writing practice.  I love to write- fiction, non-fiction, essays, satires, novels, poems, articles- you name it.  I have always loved it.  Knowing that my words are publicly available brings a formality and seriousness to writing that I just don't have when I scribble away in my journal.  It also keeps my brain engaged in something other than when Super Why is on or how many strawberries can my kid possibly consume before she turns into one.

2.  It gives me some reflection time.  I never know what I'll going to write until it comes out.  Sometimes I'm much more flippant than I mean to be.  Other times, I'm much too vulnerable.  But however it comes out is how I publish it, because it helps me see things clearer and focus on what's important.  It has forced me to see the blessings I've been given, and it has also shined the light in areas of my life much too dark for only me to walk through alone.

3.  It's good to have a few purposes- for me, anyway.  I love being a Mama, but I also love the other parts of me and it feels good to have a space to remember what those are and that it's because of them, and my honoring of them, that make me a good Mama.

4.  I know I'm not alone.  Every time I've typed out controversial opinions on the joys (or not) of breastfeeding, I regret it.  Every time I let a swear go out in print, I mentally retract it.  Any time I admit a failure, a fear, a truth in all of it's ugliness and rawness, I wish I could take it back.  Anytime I stand firm on a belief that might offend others or make them think differently, I don't write for weeks.  Or months.  Every time I express how hard and how beautiful and how rewarding and how maddening and how lonely and how comforting this life is, the prideful part of my being that makes up 79% of my DNA has a heart attack.  And yet, I continue to do it.  Because, once in a while I'll get an email from a friend who said they had just as hard of a time as I did adjusting to motherhood.  Once in a while someone is brave enough to tell me that miscarrying broke their hearts, too, enough to struggle with wanting children at all.  Because- people laugh when they tell me how their experiences have been strikingly similar, or vastly different.  I do it because I know I'm not the only one who cries every night praying her daughter will go to sleep and when she finally does, misses the feeling of her sweaty little head on my shoulder.  I'm not alone.  And neither are you.

So, blogging is stupid.

But I'm going to keep doing it anyway.