To Blog or Not To Blog

We were having dinner at my in laws last night and discussion about my blog came up. "I don't write much, these days," I said.

My husband, listening on the fringes of the conversation, piped up and explained that the reason for my lack of posts had nothing to do with how busy I found myself these days and more to do with my quality of life. He felt that blogging was a way for me to fill a void and now that I am content and happy, my need to blog has diminished.

There might be some truth in that.

However, it's more likely that I am just a lazy cow.

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I began blogging for a number of different reasons. I found it cathartic to spill it all out onto the internet and put the small absurdities of my life into perspective. When you have an audience of people reading, you become acutely aware of how silly your complaints can sound and this forces you to not take yourself so seriously, which was a really good thing for me.

I thought that maybe I could earn a few bucks blogging part time and for the first two and a half years, I did. It wasn't much, mind you, because in order to make enough money to report to the IRS, you have to have a much bigger reader base than I had accumulated. People like Dooce and The Pioneer Woman are the exception, not the rule. And make no mistake, those women work hard. Their websites are really well done.

As an adult, I've often wondered who my parents were at my age. I sometimes chat with my mum about her thirties and forties but like most memories, the edges of her recall has faded and blurred with the passing of time and I know the same will happen to me. I can no longer remember every detail of the births of my children, which surprises me, considering they were two of the most significant events of my life. I wanted this blog to be a record for my kids, for better or worse.

Behind every blogger, I think you'll find a person who had dreams of becoming a novelist. There was a time when I was convinced that writing was my path. I was going to pen a great book, have it adapted into an equally great movie and retire, wealthy, before the age of forty. Yes, well, we all know how that worked out. The reality is that the world is brimming with people who are much more talented than me and who have better stories to tell than I do. I'm perfectly okay with that.

The magic of the blogosphere is such that I get to connect and have a dialogue with people I wouldn't likely have met under normal circumstances. I read the posts of a guy in the UK who brews beer and devotes an enormous part of his life to sustainably growing food. He gives me hope that one day, I will be able to grow something, too. I read about a woman in the hills of New Hampshire, who is a divorced, single parent and who is renovating her farmhouse, with her own hands, by herself, on a shoestring budget. I am in awe of her. She needs her own TV show. In addition to the USA, I have blog friends in Canada, Australia, South Africa, Sweden, the UK, Hong Kong and Vietnam. Blogging makes you realize that while geographically vast, the world really isn't all that big. I like that.

For the most part, I get to be me here. I don't have to worry that this blog makes my ass look fat or that my religious views might get me fired. I don't have to be politically correct unless I want to be. My husband was partially right. I am definitely a content and happy woman but blogging has always been more to me than just a means to fill a void. It's the place I go to let it all hang out and sometimes, I like to visit more often than others.