The Thing About Bloggin'

So, I have been mulling over this blogging thing for a few weeks.  I love it.  But why do I love it?  Is is weird that I love it?  Do I need to justify it (for you?  for myself?)?

When I first started a blog - 2 years ago - it was just a "here are my pictures" kind of blog.  I didn't keep up with it for long.  It didn't do much for me.  I abandoned it.  Over the next year, I started reading a few people's blogs.  They were more of the "this is what I am thinking, learning, contemplating" kind of blogs.  Now that, I could get into that.  I liked reading people that I had things in common with or that I found interesting.  But still, I was not ready to blog myself... my feeling, my thoughts, my hopes, my fears, my hurts, my joys.  Until one day.  Once I tried it, I was hooked.

So after thinking about this for a few weeks, here are my thoughts on why I blog:

1. I want to document things for my kids to look back on. I want them to see the pictures of the things that our family did together and know my thoughts about those things.  I want them to know how I feel about them.  I want them to have it down on paper (or a computer screen) that I am madly in love with them.  I love being their mommy.  I love their daddy.  I also want them to be able to look back at my entries someday and see what their crazy-old-mom was thinking when she did this-or-that.  I want them to be able to see that I am just a human- a broken-human - trying to live this life to the best of my ability.  I want them to see the struggles that I have in all areas of my life.  I want them to learn from them and know that I can relate to their struggling as they navigate through their lives.

2. It is a good way to keep in touch with people and let them know what is going on in my family's life.  Sadly, I have just about abandon the idea of snail-mail altogether.  Email is still an option for some things, but as far as sharing our family's photos and what we are up to, this is the way to go.  Plus, it gives the reader an option to look at every adorable picture of my darling kids or just skim through every few months and catch the highlights.  (Why you'd do that, I do not know.  :) )

3.  I want to be known.  At first it was scary to put myself "out there".  I didn't want to be judged... but I did want to be known.  Desperately.  I was in the midst of some serious evolution, - finding a "new normal"- and I needed to figure out who I was and quit pretending that I was who I wasn't.  Not that I was intentionally acting like someone that I wasn't... but I was changed and/or changing.  I needed a way to work through that and to present myself to those that chose to get to know me.  The new me.  The different me.  The constantly changing me.  

4. I sometimes need a place to work through my junk. When my mind is jumbled with thoughts, I sometimes sort through how I am feeling by writing it down.  Sometimes my entries are for me, and me only.  (and it is cheaper than therapy)

5. I like getting to know "you" on a deeper level. Around the time that I started blogging regularly, several of my family and friends and acquaintances did too.  I cannot say how great I think it is that you did... and that I get the privilege of getting to know you better because of the parts of yourselves that you allow to be shown through your blogs.  Knowing people - really knowing them - is so important to me.  I don't have any desire to know people on a surface basis.  If we are going to invest into each other's lives,  I say let's get down and dirty.  Lets get to know each others junk.  Hopes, fears, frustrations.  Reality.  I think that that has happened for me with my blogging friends.  I know you guys better and you know me better than we did a year or two ago.  None of that "How are you?/ Just fine." junk goes on between us anymore.  When we pass each other in a public place I have an idea how you are and you kind of know how I am too.  There is a sense of understanding that we now have because of this little window into each others souls that we have each granted each other.  We can be authentic.  What a novel idea.

6. It is the most awesome prayer-chain out there.  Where else can a person awaiting a double lung transplant or parents of a micro-preemie baby or a mother that has just lost her infant daughter get thousands of "bonus prayers"?  Or what about plain-old-me.  I am not going to call each and every one of you and say, my kids are puking, I have not slept in 5 nights, my heart is broken right now, etc. and ask for your prayers.  But if I post it, I know that you are thinking about me and my family and my situation and maybe you are lifting me up in prayer.  Really... prayers flooding heaven for you because you are one of those blogging-people.  I think that that is amazing.

7.  There are just some people that are interesting and funny and creative, and I am intrigued by them. I have always liked to people-watch.  Blog-reading is the ultimate in people-watching.  I can come into someone's craft room, and see the things that they have created.  I can read someone that is totally different from me and learn from them.  I can look at certain blogs when I just need a good laugh or want to be inspired to take a beautiful photograph.  I can read an interesting mommy-blog and see that my life is not so different than hers and get inspired by her ideas. 

8. It gives me something to do at 3am. Yes, I am a bit of an insomniac.  So, if you don't mind... could you post something every once in a while for me to read in the middle of the night?

So there you have it... I am a card carrying member of the bloggy-world.  And probably will be for a long, long time.  Now you know why.