Why Blog

One of the questions I've been wrestling with as I've been thinking about this blog is, "why blog at all?" I mean I already journal and I'm pretty sure I'm going to be more honest in their than on here. Although, perhaps I should challenge that perception a little. While my journal may be for my eyes only I know I am fairly capable of lying to myself. We all do it. And we're less conscious of it than we think. But when I am writing for an audience, even an imaginary one at this point, I am going to have to check myself a little more often. When I'm writing for others I often find myself asking the question, "wait, is that actually true?" And this probably stems from a fear of people on the internet correcting me. That is going to happen anyways, but it is a good question to ask. The number of times in my life that I've said something and then questioned whether is was true or not only to find out that I was indeed mistaken is too many to count. We have so many facts in our head that don't actually relate to reality. It is a good idea to fact check yourself often. But I am especially fastidious about it when I am writing for others. Sure it comes from a place of not wanting to appear stupid (and really who does?) but even if it is a stupid fear based thing it still works on improving who I am as a person. While I'd like to work on the whole "I really fucking care how other people perceive me" thing, this probably isn't the worst thing to have developed from it. 

But let's come back to that question, "why blog at all?" and while blogging has been something I've wanted to do for a while I think the reason that I'm actually getting down to business now is my mom. Early in October of this year my mom unexpectedly passed away. It has been really hard and I've only got a handful of her thoughts on life to keep guiding me. One of the blessings (I really don't have another word for it) from this year was that I signed her up for a service called StoryWorth. This service prompted her once a week with a question about her life and then she'd send off an email to me (and my family) with her answer. The idea for me when I signed her up was that I'd have something for the kids when they were older so that if something happened they could still get to know their grandma. I never imagined that it was such an urgent thing. So as I said, it was a blessing that I signed her up when I did because now I have a trove of stories from her. Questions I wouldn't have thought to ask that are insights into her life.

Losing my mom has really driven home how fragile life is. I know it is cliché, but I have a deeper appreciation for what limited time I have left. It has also left me questioning what my legacy is going to be and what I am going to be leaving behind for my children. I want to use this blog to tell my story. And while I'm not going to be answering deeply personal questions with every entry it is going to be a place to publicly leave my thoughts. In a lot of ways this is going to be a blog for my children. Not my children now, but the people they are going to become. But at the same time, I don't want to sugarcoat the stories I leave behind for them. I am a writing for adults and I know that I am going to raise my kids to into strong people. So they are going to see things that they disagree with. They are going to get a different insight into who I am as a person, because we never truly see our parents for who they are. Our parents hold a special place for us, good or bad, because they are so fundamental in raising us. 

I suppose the same can be said of our children. While I may be intimately familiar with my 3-year-old's life right now I've already been feeling as our lives have been pulled apart. Her time at school. Her time with her grandparents (wife's side, of course). And time she just plays on her own. As she gets older she is going to be spending more and more time away from me and at some point she is going to learn that she doesn't need to share everything that is on her mind. She is already growing into a complex person and I am going to lose the little girl I have now. And that is okay, while I love who she is now I am sure I am also going to love who she becomes. And her brother as well. But I'm also not going to know them like I do now. We all spend so much time hiding who we are. We only want to show our best face or at least an approximation of it. And I suppose those closest to us get to see us strip away some of that armor more often, we still have bits of ourselves that we hide.

Hopefully writing here will help me discard some of that armor so that I can be more vulnerable with those I love and even those who I am just getting to know. If I want to be my authentic self I need to let me be me. And if I want to grow as a person (which I do) I need to be able to face that there are parts of me that I want to leave behind and be honest that they are parts of me now. I'm not sure where I'm going with this, but hey that's okay.

So why blog? Because I want to tell my story my way and this format prompts me in a completely different way than journaling does. Because I have a lot to say and sometimes it is difficult for me to verbalize what I want to say but if you give me a keyboard I can lay it all out there.