no excuses

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.