On Blogging and Being Me

I've been toying with the thought of this post for a while, and by happenstance, tonight seems the appropriate night to write it.

As it turns out, I entered the blogging world exactly six years ago today.  It's one of those moments where I can remember it perfectly.  I'd wanted a blog for a few weeks, had finally convinced my parents to let me, and after a frustrating few hours of trying to figure blogger out and calling up the dear friend of mine who had inspired me to blog in the first place, my first blog was live.

My first blog was entitled, "Lady of the Rose", after a poem I liked which I have since forgotten, but in the poem, the rose was the symbol of the Infant Christ.  A few years later I decided that I needed a title change, and became A Rose in Bloom - named after a book by Louisa May Alcott which I very much enjoyed.  I had that blog for four years, at which point I went away to school and the blogging bug faded away for a year.  When it came back, I decided I needed something new.  I'd changed a lot, and my old blog, as dear as it was to me, just didn't fit any more.  Rather than entirely revamping my old blog with a new name, new look and new layout, I started this blog instead.

I think it is the introvert in me that has always enjoyed blogging so.  I tend to be quiet in a crowd, I am not the best communicator, I don't share my deeper and more thoughtful thoughts well.  In the setting of a blog, however, I am safe.  I can talk and share and feel free.  I can take as long as I need to to formulate and edit what it is I am trying to say.

As much as I love blogging, there is one thing that I have struggled with for all the six years I have been blogging and that is being content with being myself.

You see, I am a people pleaser.  I want people to like me.  I want lots of people to like me.  I don't talk all that much, so when I do talk I want people to listen to me.  I have dreams of having hundreds of followers who comment on the majority of my blog posts and have discussions with me.  Dreams which have never been fulfilled.

And I've struggled with that.  I've struggled with that a lot.  I've looked at other blogs out there that are popular and that everyone visits and reads and I have thought "Why? What am I doing wrong?  What can I do to make people like my blog just as much?  How can I imitate all these other blogs?"  College played a role in my blogging hiatus, but the other big factor was burn out from trying to become the ideal blogger, the blogger with a vast following.

Then, not all that long ago (okay wow, over a year ago), I read a blog post by Kelly from "This Ain't The Lyceum", where she talked about blogging and why she kept at it... and let me just quote what she said.

I registered a domain and designed a site despite not being entirely certain what I would write about on a regular basis. Would people really want to keep reading about how much I suck at homeschooling and all my ramblings about the ugly, vintage items scattered in my house? How many photos of a stranger’s children dressed in mismatched clothes can people look at? But yet, I kept going. I wrote stuff so I wouldn’t forget it and I wrote stuff because reading it made me laugh(and maybe snort/ geese honk laugh.) I poured my heart into a few posts when I needed to, and people responded with prayers and words of encouragement. I even finally got around to organizing all my history notes and posting them online for others to download and use.

I’m still a small fish in a large pond, but unless I’ve got one or two really persistent stalkers, I racked up a nice amount of page views. I keep telling my husband I’m writing because I like it, not for approval or to make money, but certainly, knowing other people are reading and enjoying my work is satisfying. 

*emphasis mine

"Yes," I thought, "that is why I am blogging.  I am blogging because I like it.  I have to blog because I want to, not because I want everyone else to want me to."

Once I decided that, blogging became fun again.  I love getting comments and I break out in a huge smile each time I get a new follower but those are bonuses to blogging now, not the purpose behind my posts.  I am blogging because I am me, and me likes to write. Me likes to write about the things I enjoy, and the things that make me want to write - Me doesn't blog about topics that might get other bloggers finger's moving.  Because that isn't me.

I've wondered on a few occasions if I should try and have a more unified theme for this blog, if I should start writing more reviews and things, or Catholic living, or something.  But no, that's not me, at least not right now.  Right now I am a girl who loves to write, and wants to write about the randomness of life.  There is no theme, there is no unity, there is just me.

And I'm okay with that.  Here's to at least six more years of blogging!