Why I blog

At my moms' club book club a couple weeks ago we discussed the book Carry On, Warrior by Glennon Melton. I didn't choose the book but was happy to see it chosen as I read her blog regularly and had read her book on my own many months before. Our book club does not always spend a ton of time discussing the book; we spend lots of time talking about motherhood and our kids and life in general. When discussion turned to the book at this meeting, the responses were varied.

It's a book of essays, many of which appeared on her blog before being included in her book. While a discussion about a novel can be about the characters or the arc of the story line, a discussion about personal essays often ends up being about the person. In this case her focus on Jesus. The way she talks about her kids. Her addictions. What some people felt was her tendency to talk too much about herself. Talking about her book was so helpful to me because it allowed me to solidify my own ideas about why I'm writing a blog.

I've wanted to be a writer since I was young. In fact, I guess I've been a writer since I was eight or nine if you count keeping a journal as being a writer. I would never have used the term "writer" but now I am claiming it. I am a writer. Wow! Scary and exciting.

Glennon Melton was actually one of the reasons I decided to start this blog. She wrote something about not waiting until everything was perfectly in place before starting to do the thing you've been meaning to do. She wrote about the world needing to hear your voice. She did give those of us with kids under 5 an out, saying that we're in the thick of surviving early parenthood and that is enough. Phew! But it was a push that helped me finally say to myself "I've been saying I'm going to write for a long, long time. I'm 37 years old. When exactly do I think I'm going to start writing?"

Two sets of twins gave me a topic and I assumed I would write mostly about my kids. In fact, I've struggled with the identify of this blog since it began because I've been unsure about so many things. Wanting to protect the privacy of my kids and worrying about writing too much about them on the internet has been the main thing. Even though the blogs I love the most include pictures and very vivid stories about the women's children. I've also struggled when big events have happened--like the killing of Mike Brown in Ferguson. I've felt unsure about how deep I wanted to get about my politico-social beliefs while also feeling weird about not sharing something that's weighing heavily on my mind. Quite frankly, I don't want to get in fights about things. The comments that Glennon gets can be excruciating. Every blogger I've followed has had at least one post about how they deal with the things people say to them, not just about what they write but about who they are. Finally I've wondered about creating a disjointed conversation with the people who read this. Does it matter if I bring up a subject and then don't come back to close the loop? Are we in a conversation? Am I sharing my journal with you? What's happening around here anyway?

Our book club helped me see that I'm viewing this blog as two things--a writing exercise and a chance to be as real and authentic as I can be. I will sometimes write about my kids but mostly from the perspective of how I feel as their mother. I'm the one with my hands full (my husband too but he can start his own blog if he wants to). I will write about myself, even though it feels scary to open that up to the world of the internet. Even though it's easy to worry that writing about myself is dumb and self-indulgent and navel-gazing. I actually don't feel worried about that. I want to develop my written voice, write true and interesting words for other people to read. The written word has reached into me and saved me many times throughout my life. The experience of reading something someone else wrote and stopping in recognition--wait, I've felt that way! What a gift. What a relief. And what an opportunity.

Handsfull also creates accountability but I'm raising the stakes. I will write here every day in the month of October. I will!