Oh, hi there friend.
It sure has been a while.
No excuses – no “gee time got away from me!” – no “Ï can’t
believe it’s been so long!”
Here’s the truth of it.
Blogging changed, and I decided I wasn’t that interested in
it any more.
I pulled the pin and stopped posting. I even stopped
checking my blog email address, which is why I no longer have my domain
(sadface) because I missed the email where they asked me to update my credit card
expiry date – so they gave my domain away. Still not sure why a Japanese security
camera company want the domain but whatever. What’s done is done. New domain is
in the works.
But I still remain unsure whether I’ll be back here yet.
When I started blogging (over ten years ago) the internet
was a very different place. There was no facebook, no twitter, no social media
to speak of. We had websites. And our websites were put in webrings. Mine was
in the teenage parent webrings, and through it I was able to reach out and
email other teen parents across the world. It was fantastic. At the same time,
sites like LiveJournal were starting to become popular. Post your thoughts and
get comments back from people! How
amazing!
So I started journalling/blogging (though that term came a
bit later)
It was still 99% US-centric. With the exception of 2 people,
all my journalling friends were American. A few years later, it came out that a
bunch of my local, real life friends were reading my journal entries. I always
wrote under a pseudonym and it felt like a kick in the guts to know they were
reading such personal things about me. Who I was interested in, my secret,
stupid romantic thoughts – all out there and all read by those who knew the
person I was madly in love with. I was mortified. And I locked that shit down.
But I kept writing, because I had linked in with people who
by that point had been reading my entries for years. We had watched each other
get married, get divorced, have babies, change jobs, change husbands, come out,
travel etc etc. They knew the best and the worst of me, and I still consider a
lot of them to be friends.
When my baby died, I went even more public. Joined blogger,
and joined every site I could that linked up parents who had lost babies
(thanks Mel). I went all out, it was all there to see (and still is, I am
constantly amazed that after years of walking away from it I still get
thousands of hits). I still wrote under a pseudonym, but I freely gave out the
address to anyone I knew, because heck – if they wanted to know what was going
on with me, they could read it and know. I didn’t have to go through it all in
person – writing was always so much easier, had always come to me so much
easier than spoken words.
A few years passed, and by this point I felt that I needed
to move on from that blog. I had made so many friends through that site, and my
reader was always full. I enjoyed keeping up with everyone, but it was time to
move on. I had my living baby after my loss, and I needed a place to write more
generally about my life.
And NoSuzyHomemaker was born.
Around the same time, there was a boom in Australian
blogging. All of a sudden it seemed every mother in the country discovered
blogs and jumped on board. It was fantastic – reading all these local stories
written in such an authentic Australian voice. I got involved as much as I
could in the Aussie blogging community. Even went to a conference.
And then it all started to fall apart.
I began comparing myself to these other bloggers. These
bloggers who were constantly being flown across the country by big brands;
constantly doing giveaways from companies; being wooed by big companies to
write for them.
I couldn’t figure out why it was happening all of a sudden.
Was it simply that blogging became such a trend in Australia and brands wanted
in on the action? I know as mothers we are huge decision makers and our voice
needs to be valued by these companies. I think it’s great that they decided to
get on board with bloggers.
But all of a sudden it seemed that everyone was being
invited to fancy breakfasts, being sponsored for this and that. Everything
became a competition. And I am a competitive mofo. If there is a contest, I
have to be in on it and I have to win. Blogging stopped being fun and started
feeling like a chore.
I joined twitter, and quickly got scared away by the sheer
volume of tweets going out – I couldn’t keep up with that, I had these crazy
kids! And renovations! And a wife that needed taking care of!
I created a facebook page…and virtually never posted on it.
It all seemed like so much work! And for what?
Blogging lost its usefulness as a tool for me to work
through my issues on ‘paper’. It stopped being about self expression and
started being about traffic and stats and branding. And yes, I could have
ignored it and kept blogging my own way, but come on. This is me. Please see
above paragraph. Competitive mofo - Party of one. If I know it’s happening, I
must be in on it.
And I can’t do it.
*****
So, friends, where does this leave us? I am not completely
sure.
Will I post again? Most likely.
Will it be sporadic? Definitely.
Will I get right back into it? Possibly, who knows.
All I know for now is that I don’t know.
