Why Blog? My Complicated Relationship with the Blogosphere

Yes, a blog. Yes, another stay-at-home mom/feminist/writer blog (isn't it awesome that there are so many of us!) I've been affected by blogs in both positive and negative ways in my adult life and I think it's important to share this impact before beginning this blogging adventure.

 In 2007 Wes and I moved to Seattle. I could not find work, became severly depressed and tetered on the edge of an eating disorder (control issues...more on this in the future). I turned obsessively and desperately to blogs and the internet. I never touched my own keyboard but lost myself in the lives of others. Through this experience I discovered the internet's ability to help and to harm. The envy and worthlessness that came along with looking at tableaux's of what people want you to see of their lives was very desctructive to my assent out of depression. It wasn't the internet's fault nor was it the weight and career obsessed bloggers'. I was simply too fragile and lost to be looking at a world that seemed so perfect. There is so much open interpretation on the internet and blogs, and that needs to be acknowledged and respected.

In 2009, health and happiness restored, I returned to blogs while exploring an interest in alternative education. My career has been in teaching English/Language Arts with a special interest in alternative schools and I had been moving further and further away from mainstream education. Home school, free school and unschooling blogs gave me the strength to pursue my ideas and goals in my chosen field without fear.

The irony is not lost on me that observing the lives of strangers helped me learn about myself. Which brings me to why I want to start a blog of my own. I don't have any life advice to give. I am not an expert on anything. I am a 27 year-old mother, wife, poet and a million other things. I am just like you and the complete opposite of you. Blogs are so strange. They can feel so egotistical and pointless, yet, I do want to know what you did on your trip to California, I want to see pictures of kids I don't know playing and looking cute. Images and experiences don't have to be tied to a product, their purpose is their own existence. The great thing about blogs is that they make us motivated or happy just by virtue of someone living their life. I'm not perfect, but I am happy. I'm 37 weeks pregnant with my first child, I'm writing poetry in earnest for the first time in my life and I married my best friend. I want to share all of this. I want to write and share what I feel, think and do, and I want people to share in it for no particular reason at all. Just because they want to. :)