Inspired by Explosions in the Background

I've been thinking a lot about blogging lately, namely the blogs I like, why I like them and how I aspire to blog similarly. There are a whole host of blogs with capes, ("Super blogs" if you will,) that I visit regularly and yet fail to link to here. I've listed a few of the "big daddies," all women who are favorite writers and who have this blog thing down. But there are so many more of you.

Blogs are so reflective of their writers. The tone, the content, even the design. The author and their life and essence come through regardless of the code names they give to their special people. I wonder what comes through in mine. At the same time, I think wondering what comes through makes me sort of self-absorbed in a way that I don't want to be. I think when I first even thought about having a blog, I had a perception that people who had blogs were all about themselves and why didn't they just shut up and keep it in their diary? The thing is, I don't take the time to write in my journal anymore. I have to accept that I am now one of the self-absorbed ones, feeling my life is important enough to document so that others can read. Self-absorbed is one way to describe bloggers, but now I have a more broad perspective on what it means to write a blog and it means so much more than just self-absorption.

Ironically, though my blog is all about me, I don't reveal too much. I was thinking about why this is and all I can figure out is that I am talking about more than just myself. I'm talking about my great partner and the two precious beings who are the most important thing in the world to me. It's precious stuff and each and every detail is inside me but I don't let it all out. I keep it close. No doubt the grandparents want less craft project run-downs and more, "What cute things Avery said today," or more, "Julia's amazing feats."

I share minimally and I like to keep it light. My "RUMMY" post was really hard to put out there because when I feel crappy and when I'm doing a crappy job at being a mom or a human, I don't like to admit it. So many bloggers though who I LOVE are really good at putting that side of themselves out there, at being vulnerable and real and multifaceted. There's a part of me that edits myself and only allows a "pretty picture" to emerge. My brother actually called and left me a message recently complimenting the pretty picture I painted. I like that I refreshed him, as has always been my role, it seems, but similarly, I think I want to write the rotten and let it all be there on the screen for someone to digest and accept and above all else relate to. I love it when bloggers do that because when I read along I can relate and it makes me feel so much better. Just as it makes me feel great when I read a satisfying post that was light and positive. We all feel both ways at different times.

It is also my way to keep it brief. It is the rusher in me doing this, the person who rarely sits for sitting's sake, conversing with my children at the table and doing nothing more. Me? I sit down with them at the breakfast table talking on the phone, telling them to drink their milk, making a list, and in my head rehearsing the day's events. When I cut it short, I am thinking of my audience. I am being an enabler, saying, "Okay, you can be done now, wouldn't want to keep you long," but before I'm finished. The audience will come along for the ride if they want, my job is just to put it out there. I certainly go the distance on the posts I really want to read. Will you stick with me when I have more to say? I must give you (ten readers :O) this opportunity.

I am also a perfectionist. It would kill you to know how often I edit my posts before I punch the little orange button. And why? Who. Cares? In the fourth grade, this girl told me that people didn't want to be my friend because I was so perfect. At the time her words hurt so badly, but that girl, whose face I can see but whose name doesn't register, was clueing me into a lifelong lesson that I continue to learn. The desire to be perfect sometimes situates me into a lonely place because the people who are imperfect can't relate. They want to have faults alongside someone who has faults. OR, they want someone to look up to, and if you're portraying "perfection" people want to idealize you and in idealizing you there's no intimacy, no closeness.

There is a flip side to this. I have a friend who I really admire because she is very creative, accomplished, popular, confident, and she never seems to shrink inside herself or be small for others' sakes. She shines and she doesn't apologize for shining. I want to be like this. When someone tells me I'm great I don't want to feel bad for being great. Marianne Williamson said it best:"It is our light, not our darkness, that most frightens us. We ask ourselves, who am I to be brilliant, gorgeous, talented, and fabulous? Actually, who are you not to be? You are a child of God. Your playing small does not serve the world. There is nothing enlightened about shrinking so that other people won't feel insecure around you.” True. Dat.

No, a blog isn't just a blog. (Obviously here it has segued into a major therapy session). I seek to leave you with something of substance so that in letting it all out, I am letting you in. Through motherhood, life, blogging, I want to emerge ugly and gorgeous all at once, yet for the most part unapologetic, patient, truthful. This is how the gifted bloggers of the world emerge for me, wearing their capes and flying confidently through their posts. I care to be all of this, and yet I don't want to give a rats ass either. Hearty ambitions. Hearty ambitions, indeed.

Words looking up to fireworks, copying their booms and pops on this lovely 4th of July evening. Come back to see the effects of putting the flame to my fuse.