Dear Bloggers: An Apology

 Yes, I know I am sorry but it is one of those posts… but please don’t leave or despair and just stick around for a little bit. Okay?

Now, I never had visions of myself being a blogger and until recently had only really every scratched the surface on what being a blogger meant. In my head it was someone who had a page, wrote a few diary entries and people oo’d and ahh’d at photos of their amazing lives! There are countless free accounts in my name out there in cyberspace from over the years where I have started “blogging” put in two diary entries and then got bored and moved on to my next fad. I was worried that this time around the same thing would happen again… boy could I have been more wrong?

 Let me start by explaining my thought process. In my head when planning how my life would go, I always saw myself with a baby but never imagined I’d be a single parent right from the start. I knew that I would love my baby but how much was actually and completely inconceivable and still is. Honestly? This blog started out as a possible way to maybe eventually stay at home with her and see how things go – and that was it. I wasn’t sure anyone was going to listen, that I could even write or that people would want to read what I tried writing anyway. It was all up in the air, a lot of ifs and buts and like I said, my blog was basically an interview to be a paid stay at home mum. Oh how things have changed…

First of all I’d like to start out with an apology (yup that one in the title)… in no way shape or form is blogging easy and it is most definitely not something everyone can do. So to all the bloggers out there, KUDOS to you because blogging is hard and whether you are paid or not is a full-time occupation! When did my opinion/reasoning change? When did I suddenly take a step back and think “Hang on, this is more than that?!” I can’t tell you the exact moment, but the feeling I got when someone wrote a comment for the first time on my blog was something I had not experienced for a long time. I felt proud and amazed that I had done something someone actually wanted to read. To be honest, I never thought I could write. I knew that I was good at the grammar and spelling part and I know I can be creative in other ways… but writing? That was a whole other ball game! As the numbers of followers, comments and readers slowly started creeping up, so did my confidence in what I was doing – could I actually do this?

 It appears now, that I may have become a little bit addicted to blogging. I can never be too far away from some electrical device… I mean what if i’ve been tweeted and I am not there to respond in 30 seconds? It may sound like I am mocking but I am genuinely serious. I am currently sleep training with my darling daughter which involves more sleep for her and less for me, but it seems that no matter how tired I am, I always always make time for my blog – it’s like a refreshing break to just sit and splurge across a clean white page… I think I may have caught the bug?! This has turned into, not only a potential source of work (which happens to be the least important aspect of it now) but also a therapeutic tool for me to sit down and use when I feel happy, or overwhelmed or any of the other 99,000 emotions we seem to feel. It has also allowed me to break out from my reclusive bubble and reconnect with people and the world again.

 So we head back to that original question – why blogging? What started out as some hare-brained scheme to be a SAHM at all costs has turned into something I truly adore. The blogging world I have peeked at from round the door is incredible and some of the people I have made connections with, I know already are going to be life-long friends. In some respects I feel very lucky, as I have almost been nurtured by some of these old-hands and it has helped my blog to grow faster than I ever could have imagined. It took me three months to get my first one thousand followers and only one month to get my second. Whilst I obviously need to step back at times and take a breather, half of me is living, eating, sleeping breathing this fast-paced and exciting (not so glamorous at times) world whilst the other half of me does the same with my daughter. Would I like to be a pro-blogger? Hell to the yeah… it is one of the hardest and yet most fulfilling things I have ever done in my life. I never knew what I wanted to be when I grew up – I sang on the West End, went to Italy for three years as a teacher, worked in pubs, clubs and done anything to pay the bills but this…?

Why blogging? Because I bloody love it, and whilst I remain impatiently patient, I can’t wait for the day when I can turn round to people and say “What do I do? Oh, I am a blogger and it’s awesome!”

How about you? Why blogging?