Well, it's been several weeks since I've posted, and the real reason is that I've been plagued by self-doubt. I've been starting to wonder why in the world I thought blogging was such a great idea for me right now. I have six kids and a crazy life. Just laundry, grocery shopping and cooking are the equivalent of a normal person's full-time job. Have I actually slipped into the abyss of large family insanity from whence no traveller returns?
I realized I needed to figure out what my real motivation is for blogging before I could go on. Is it a bid for attention and adulation, since of course this little blog is destined to become famous (please note the intended sarcasm)? Is it a desire for some kind of connection with others, since I am still working to find more meaningful face-to-face connections with people since our move? Is it because I enjoy subjecting others to my navel-gazing moments?
The truth is, it may be all those things. Bottom line, my life is a little bit of this, a little bit of that, and a whole lot of monotony that paradoxically actually matters in the grand scheme of things. Only sometimes it's easy to wonder if I am doing a good enough job. It's easy to wonder if doing work that is at the bottom end of the pay and prestige scale in terms of labor economics is turning my brain to mush. Most frighteningly, it's easy to wonder if, by the time my much-loved and wanted children leave home, I will even know who I am anymore.
I need this blog now because I need to affirm, by putting it out into the world, that what I do, the decisions I'm making, and the thoughts I'm thinking are worth sharing. Hopefully my blog will also give me some satisfying connection with other people (known and as-yet unknown) who are experiencing and thinking some of the same things I am, as well as inspiring my creativity. But more than anything else, I need to reinforce the idea that what I do and who I am is worth expressing. Writing it down in a format where I am sharing it with other people is symbolically and literally very powerful.
Well, I feel better having clarified that and gotten that off my chest. Blogging world, here I am...
The best of blogging is writing without edit... exactly how you feel. And you will be encouraged because you were true.
ReplyDeleteNow, I for one, should edit; because what comes out of my mouth isn't always normal :)
I'm excited to learn more about you! Keep going... its therapy to write it all out!
Hi Kate! Thanks so much for your sweet comments and encouragement! I'm excited to actually start blogging now. Woo-hoo!
ReplyDeleteAnd I think that you should not edit yourself--normal is highly over-rated, anyway. I can't think of one person I really love whose over-arching quality is their total normality. It's not that I don't care about anyone who's normal--I just find it a lot more reassuring and fun to hang around with people who are not ;).