Stripped

When I first started writing this blog, I had 2 readers, my mom and Chris. Writing was fun, my way to share funny stories, or just for me to have a place to let loose with my thoughts. I've always wanted to be a writer, and I felt like I had good, important things to say, and honestly, I just love to write. Gradually, over the course of the next year I gained more and more readers, and while readership was a good thing, I think I got sucked into the whole "blogger" thing. I started writing posts and telling stories (even though they were true) because I knew they'd be funny material on my blog, not because I thought they were really worth sharing. If nothing funny happened that day, I'd struggle to find something, anything to write about. Yes, sometimes I wrote posts that I wanted to, sometimes I really enjoyed it, but for the most part, it was a chore. For the past month, it's been a burden. One more thing that I just really don't want to do.

For instance, when we moved here, there have been so many fun projects I've worked on, that I'd love to write about. I've worked hard on them, I've really surprised myself that I could do them at all, and I'm proud of myself. I want to share them. But I've felt like I couldn't. My blog hasn't ever been one about decorating or home projects. I'm learning to cook, Southern style, and I'm having so much fun with it, but I don't share because my blog has never been a cooking blog. The other day, there was a deer walking by the creek that runs through our backyard. The Earth seemed so quiet, so peaceful. I felt like I was witnessing the beauty of nature, the way God had intended it. I felt like it was an incredible gift that I'd been given, the feelings I had, the thoughts I had, I wanted to share them, I wanted to write about it. But I didn't because my blog has never been a spiritual blog. I read an article about how moms are more and more likely to become alcoholics because of their wine drinking obsession. I wanted to write about my own fears, about how I abused alcohol, and about how joking about having to have a glass of wine every night to be able to cope with your kids isn't funny, it's just sad. But my blog hasn't been a public service message, and I didn't want to piss off any of the more popular "mommy bloggers" by calling them out on it.

Somewhere along the lines, I stopped writing for me. Just the other day, a regular reader of my blog said, you don't seem like you're as funny as you used to be. I said, you didn't like my post? This person said, no, it was ok. Just not very funny. In the past if I got any kind of negative feedback, I made sure my next post was funny. And even if I wanted to write about something not funny, I apologized for it ahead of time. When did that start being ok? Since when do I have to apologize for writing what I want to on MY blog? I mean, I pay for the domain, it's my name in the title, doesn't that give me some right to write about what I want? And I know that I've said in the past that I'm going to write about what I want, but I couldn't. I wanted to be popular, I wanted to have a popular blog. I wanted my own 15 minutes, and I didn't think I could do that if I was too read. Somewhere in the past 2 or 3 months, something has changed. I'm not the same. I used to be a horrible cook, I'm kind of good now. Anything that even resembled crafting was a nightmare, but now, even though I still have a fear of glue guns, I'm pretty good at it. And more importantly, I'm a damn good mother. Out of anxiety, or fear, or maybe just because I thought it played better, I went to self-deprecating humor. I viewed my parenting skills as lacking because they weren't like other people's.

I know I rambling, but I don't care. I'm not apologizing anymore. If you don't want to read my blog anymore, don't. I'm at a point in my life where I have to be true to my authentic self, even if I'm still figuring it out. I have spent so long trying to be something else, and I just can't do it anymore.

I don't know the direction I'm going in, I don't know that I even have a "theme" anymore. I've never been much for labels anyway. I don't want to give up writing because it makes me happy, and I feel like that's the alternative. I thought about starting a different blog, but I like this one, it has my name in the title, and of course with all the pink and whatnot. I still may, I don't know. What I do know is, from now on, I'm stripping it all down. I'm done with the bullshit, I'm done with writing for other people, and I'm done with not being true to myself.