Why I Blog

I'm not entirely comfortable referring to myself as a "blogger" despite the fact that I do write and post here in this place that I generally refer to as my blog.  I might be comfortable referring to myself as someone who blogs.  But I'm not one of those "bloggers" who is serious about it, or dedicated to it.  Who has a theme or a cause, who uses her blog as a platform to attract needed attention to an issue.  I don't blog about my kids (not having any yet), or parenting (see previous), or politics (yikes!), and I don't have a band of readers or commenter's or followers.  I don't promote my blog.  I'm honestly still a little conflicted sometimes about the idea of anyone I know (friend or foe) reading it.  It always feels a little weird putting it out there.

But I do.  I keep blogging.  I keep being taken with an idea, I keep typing up words and editing them, I keep hitting publish and sending those words out into the universe to be read or ignored.  And although I'm sometimes curious about who (if anyone) is reading my little piece of the internet, I don't actually care about the answer.  And finding out that absolutely no-one (or everyone) was reading would not (I hope) at all affect the way I write here.  And that's really the thing that keeps me typing and editing and hitting publish with increasing frequency.  It's that love and desire and drive I have to write.  I love to craft words and I love to explore ideas and I want to do more with that than just journal but I'm not really ready to try my hand at anything (that feels, to me) too public or real or serious.  So I challenge myself here, on my own terms.  I blog for me.  I claim this space for me.

All of that being said, I do admire many actual, real-life "bloggers" and some parts of that little world (or maybe it's a rather big world), some parts of that community, have come under fire recently.  Last week one journalist wrote about why all bloggers are male and managed to be both disparaging to men and demeaning to women at the same time.  Also, a New York times article about mommy bloggers took a strikingly condescending and judgmental tone.  And even though these attacks aren't leveled directly at me, they do serve to remind me why I do this, why I love this, why I might feel a little protective of some that are being targeted.  Much has already been said in response to these articles by some real "bloggers" and they've all said it better than I could, so I'll just say this:

Some things are easy.  Criticizing is easy.  So is casting stones.  It's easy to rant, it's easy to rage, it's easy to backlash, it's easy to opine.  It's easy to insist that people fit into teeny tiny boxes.  It's easy to think/say/insist that you have it all figured out.  It's easy to say some can do and some can't.  It's easy to say women are like this and men are like that.  It's easy to say X makes you a good mom and Y makes you a bad one.  It's easy to draw lines, to set limitations, to deny.  It's easy to fear and it's easy to hold back.  It's easy to tear down and to destroy.

Other things are hard.  Belief is hard.  Being a whole person is hard.  Allowing others to be whole persons, sometimes in opposition to or even in defiance of our own ideals, is even harder.  It's hard to contribute to the conversation thoughtfully and positively.  It's hard to love, it's hard to accept, it's hard to envelope, it's hard to extend grace.  It's hard to build something, it's hard to create.  It's hard to actually do something worthwhile, to get moving and keep moving.  It's hard not to let the nay-saying slow us down.  It's hard to push boundaries.  It's hard to break stereotypes.  It's hard to be more than what everyone else says we should be.  It's hard to be okay with ourselves when we're less.

But the hard things are better things.  They're worth it.  They're what this world needs more of.  We all need to find our own little space, our own little corner of the world or the internet (or both) where we are free to do the hard things.  And we need to allow that to be okay, for ourselves, for others.  We need to join each other instead of fighting each other. Especially women.  Because it seems like it's always women attacking women.  We're the best and the worst at keeping each other and ourselves down.  And we need to be thankful for all the diverse voices, even the ones we (and I'm speaking to myself here) deem disparaging or ignorant or condescending or just plain wrong.  I may not like them, but I appreciate that they are free and I am free and we are all free to just blunder through it.  May Grace go with us all.