Why a blog, in this day and age of social media?

I’m a nostalgic person by nature and I miss the days of the internet when folks were just happy to be themselves and share what they wanted to share on their own personal platforms, not chasing an algorithm’s mysterious approval or trying to amass followers and engagement. I remember it feeling very pure-hearted and fun to read because of that. Everyone seemed very themselves, very unique, and I’d love to get back to that quietly confident ease of sharing the daily ins and outs that make a life.

I’m currently in the depths of having babies and raising small children. I am so fortunate to be a stay at home mom and have all this time with them, running the house, and even doing homestead-ish things on top of the basics. I dabble in the identity crisis stuff foisted upon mothers these days, entertaining questions like “Who am I now that I have these little ones?” And “should I be making more of an effort to still be ‘me’?”

I don’t recall the warm, happy mom blogs of the 00s and 10s (at least the ones I read) spending much if any time on those questions. They were full of women just doing stuff around the house and enjoying their kids’ cuteness. I do plenty of that, but I also indulge in the tradwife discourse from time to time. I’m not writing any dissertations on Russian communism, but I still manage to care about enough non-immediately-practical-things to feel like my mind isn’t atrophying.

I’m learning that what I once thought was a particularly lame part of my personality may actually be a blessing: during this era, I have no particular ambitions beyond raising my kids and keeping an okay-enough household. I have no burning need to maintain other parts of life, be they hobbies or a career or whatever makes me, me. I’ve been self-conscious about this, as I’ve watched many a friend, acquaintance, and parasocial connection manage to spin many plates — motherhood, wifehood, business owner, impressive amateur what-have-you — without being abjectly overwhelmed. In fact, most of these women say that they need a creative outlet while in the thick of mothering small ones. I don’t feel like I need an outlet as much as I need an inlet; that’s what taking quiet moments to write on a BLOG, 2000s/2010s style, is about for me. Taking quiet moments as they come, to put effort into organizing my own thoughts enough to write down at least semi-coherently. Because beyond just not atrophying, I hope to come through the small children era of motherhood sharpened a bit.

Regarding the many plates spinning — I’m grateful to be free from a burden of glorious purpose beyond the mundane bare minimum. While I just got done saying how I’ve noticed many a woman manage much and are happy doing it, I’ve also witnessed the stress and tension that can come from wedging something into your life that helps you feel like “you” despite all the babies and dirty dishes. Maybe it’s a form of freedom to easily find delight in the duties I have to do whether I like ‘em or not. Maybe we’re all just a little too Peter Pan about the choices before us….not every moment in life is supposed to radiate delight and meaning (please go look up the New Yorker cartoon about Todd unloading the dishwasher, it’s my favorite). Whatever it is, as it varies woman to woman, I’m happy that so many of us have the freedom and chutzpah to express ourselves as the good Lord made us to do.

So, here I have this website, this domain I’ve been sitting on for awhile now, refusing to part with it but also unwilling to just WRITE for goodness sake. I’ve dithered about it being full of aspirational content, thinking how motivating it would be for me to foist together a corner of the home lovely enough for a quick photo shoot here and there. (We do delude ourselves sometimes, don’t we?) I’ve dithered about it being a heart-on-my-sleeve outpouring of all my inner thoughts. (Kidding! That is something my Scandinavian disposition would never allow.)

But the thing I keep coming back to, keep wanting, is a place to practice writing and sharing about LIFE in the strange public anonymity that is how the old internet felt. I came of age during a time when we kids were regaled with stories of how simply sharing your jersey number with a stranger online could be enough for them to track you down and shuffle you into a windowless van. Now we’re in a time of unhinged access to the most inside thoughts PLUS outer “realities” of millions of people. It’s intoxicating, as rampant social media addiction proves. It’s very whiplashy, for nostalgic younger millennials like myself.

And then there’s the AI thing. I hesitate to write online out of protest of the all-seeing eye of AI crawlers and whatnot, unwilling to avail my own silly human offerings to that deep and scary maw. I WANT to confound the bots and write purely for my own pleasure, and if other humans get a kick out of it too, then boy howdy how fun would that be. What a thing, purely for my own entertainment and MAYBE even edification on a good day (I know I could stand to develop the discipline required to write regularly, for starters). The other day I was chatting with a friend about AI and she bemoaned that there’s no reason to use cursive anymore. I rebutted her that yes there is, and it is your pleasure. Maybe AI, at its best, will free folks to pursue delight. That seems very Pollyanna to think so, but I do like the sense of freedom to do something for fun because it’s human to want fun.

So, here you have it, dear reader, a new foray in the old style of a simple chronicle of one woman’s mundane ambitions, for the joy of it.