Why another blog?

I have dabbled in blogs, but I wouldn’t say I’ve ever been too committed to posting and “creating content” (as it’s called these days). I write, at best, in spurts. Some are creative pieces, edited and over-edited. Some are flow of consciousness documentations of life as I experience it. Some get preachy and overly into giving advice. (Some. Moms need someone to preach at, right?) Almost all of them care way too much about what others think.

So why another blog?

There are plenty of reasons not to. The internet is overrun with relatively privileged voices. I may not have anything very unique to contribute. I may abandon it, like other attempts and my real life journals. I may feel like I have to engage in tons of conversations I don’t have the energy to engage in. I may regret spending money to buy a domain name (a first!) on our family’s very modest budget. It may not be successful. (But why does it need to be successful. And… what IS successful?!) I may get called out for not saying the right things or contradicting myself as I work through thoughts. I may get carried away with censoring myself, or only showing off my best shiny self, or (my age old struggle) trying to make everyone happy and everyone like me.

People have told me for years that I should blog. So I may just very well disappoint you.

But there are all these ideas floating around in my head about discomfort and being uncomfortable. Like, there’s plenty to worry about and lament in our world right now. And then there’s my needs as a person and a partner; my own humbling limitations. There’s the needs of my wildly unique 4 kids and the roles I juggle. There’s knowing you need something, but not knowing where to even begin, so you try to do everything or end up doing absoluely nothing.

I’ve spent chunks of my life wishing I could wake up from numbness and feel more, and other parts wishing my heart woukd stop breaking and I could feel less. As a not-currently-practicing therapist, I’m reminded how often we idealize self-actualization and waking up, but how much we hate discomfort. We go to great lengths to outrun it, escape it, deny it, placate it. I have a bag of tricks that I fall back in to. I stress shop, scroll, eat, drink, nap too much. There’s shame and frustration, but truth be told at the end of the day… no shame. We all find helpful and unhelpful ways to cope with our uncomfortable feelings.

We do all need ways to care for ourselves in this crazy world. But more and more, I feel it’s time to stop wishing away the discomfort. Maybe this weird time in our society is a time to try to lean into the uncomfortable and realize it probably won’t kill us. Probably. But I reserve the right to do this imperfectly and day drink if desired.

All that said…

Welcome to this telling of life: alive, awake, uncomfortable.