Finding Myself Again and Realizing I’m Not THAT Blogger. I’m ME.

When I first started blogging almost 10 years ago, I did it for one simple reason – to just “get it out of my system” and let go of whatever was going on that day. I was a stay-at-home-mom with a toddler and a baby and a teenage daughter with no vehicle, no stores within walking distance, and no friends nearby.

I was on Prozac to keep me from losing my mind, because the toddler had ADHD and I couldn’t control him. My husband wouldn’t allow me to get him tested, and at that time, when I did ask his pediatrician about it, she told me that they could not test a child with any “certainty” until they were in a school setting. I personally thought that was a load of bullshit – if I knew that the kid had ADHD at this stage in the game, why in the hell couldn’t anyone else see it?

So I struggled through each day the best that I could, and writing on my blog became my release, my way to just put it all out there and let it go. Sometimes a random visitor would see a post that they could relate to and leave a comment, most of the time it was just a handful of friends leaving me words of encouragement to keep me going. My blog was all that I had to keep me from losing my mind.

Either way – it was REAL and it was HONEST and it was ME.

I read a post today that I saw on Google+ (my new hangout since ditching Facebook). It was written by Carrie-Anne Foster and is entitled “What The Hell Are You Thinking?” Carrie-Anne has only been blogging since February. Of 2014. She is already going through the same issues I’ve been dealing with for months. Feeling overwhelmed. Feeling as though blogging is a job without a paycheck at the moment. Does my blog really mean anything?

Maybe because Spring is knocking on our door here in Virginia, maybe because I’m just feeling out of sorts with everything at the moment, but I’m in need of some changes. Drastic or small, doesn’t matter. All I know is that, if I want to continue blogging for another ten years, some things need to change – for me.

For so many years people have been saying that you need to have a niche to blog about. Well screw that. I DON’T HAVE A NICHE. I blog from the heart. I’m not a robot that blogs about the latest fashion trends, or does a shitload of Easter recipes two months in advance, or does cutesy DIY projects with her kids to share all over the internet. I’m not that blogger.

I’m a mom. I deal with raising a Minecraft-obsessed tween, a Call of Duty obsessed teenager who never comes out of his room except to inhale food like a Marine at chow time, a husband who has no clue about my blogging and social media fascination and quite frankly doesn’t give a rat’s ass either.

I deal with boys getting suspended from school. I deal with IEP meetings and kids that say they are going to be one place and end up being someplace totally different. I deal with being a volunteer for the middle school Boosters Club and doing more work for free but that actually makes a difference for my boys’ and the school that they love.

I deal with people banging on my apartment door all day either looking for my husband (who is the maintenance supervisor at our apartment complex where we live) or banging on my door to ask me for this or that. Some days, I don’t mind the interruptions. Other days, I want to put a sign on the door that says, “Do Not Bother Me. Go the Fuck Away. I’m Busy.”

I deal with people not understanding that my blog = my job. Just like I wouldn’t come and bother you unannounced at your job, I expect the same courtesy. But I don’t get it. I deal with being tired of explaining myself and what I do all day long to strangers and to hubby.

I deal with being a stay-at-home mom. I deal with preparing meals that everyone will eat so that I don’t have to cook two separate dinners. I deal with making sure the bills get paid, there is food in the house to satisfy everyone, that hubby doesn’t go crazy wanting to buy something totally out of our budget range that will put us in debt for another million years. I deal with making sure everyone has clean clothes, deal with making sure I have the money to buy laundry detergent and soap and toilet paper and toothpaste and shampoo. I deal with caring for my family on a day-to-day basis. I can’t tell you when the last time was that I bought new underwear, but my boys have plenty.

You bet your ass I’m busy. I work all day long and well into the evening hours doing all of it. It is what I do. It is what I love. Just because I’m on the computer, or my tablet, or the phone does not mean I am not working. I don’t do physical labor – I do mental labor. My physical labor that I do keeping the house clean and doing the laundry is called exercise.

Just as Carrie-Anne’s post gave me the answer I’ve been searching for – that I can be ME and blog about what I want on MY blog without having to conform to some niche or unspoken blogging rule – I hope that my post will help another blogger out there.

Be original … Be yourself.

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