Addicted to Blogging

Moderation, they say, is the key to enjoyment. Hmmm…. I wonder what “they” would say about my growing addiction to blogging. Because, let’s be honest, I am getting a bit addicted.

When I was young, I wrote all the time. I wrote poems, stories, you name it. I’m not sure if I had an opinion on the quality of that work, but my mom thought it was great. Totally unbiased view, of course. She even got a few of my poems calligraphied and framed. I wonder if she still has it since they downsized a few years back?

Then the real school years hit and once I got to college, I was writing so many papers that sitting down at the computer one more time became less of a priority. There were a few noteworthy times during those years when my pen hit the paper, but few and far between. Most of the time, my writing was academic only.

Then I got a real job, got married, had kids… and the writing stopped. Life just got too busy and my priorities changed. Ironically, that time would have been a perfect time to write. The continuous life changes brought on a myriad of emotions that would have been wonderful to write about, both for therapeutic and reflective reasons. Oh well…

Then, a few months ago, I met up with a friend for lunch. I had the kids with me and she had her new little girl with her. My kids played while we chatted and then we got some lunch. Towards the end of lunch, my friend asked me a pointed question, about how I was doing and what I had been doing and it hit me. All that time, I had only talked about the kids. When it came to me, I had nothing to say. What could I say? All day, every day, all I did was take care of the kids. I made meals, cleaned up messes, drove to play dates and stores, sang songs, read books and mediated battles over plastic toys that hardly seemed worth the effort. I changed diapers and gave hugs and kisses. While all these activities may be essential to the growth and development of my children, and even enjoyable to me at the moment they are occurring, enthralling adult conversation they do not make. I was teaching part time, but the teaching wasn’t getting as much emotional energy as the parenting, despite the hours of work I was putting for lesson planning and grading.

In the process of creating and raising my children, I was losing myself. This was not good.

This isn’t really a problem that you fix, at least not quickly. It’s not like the solution is on sale at Target for the low price of $19.99. Hey, if it were sold at Target I would have seen it already. I spend enough time there. It did get me thinking, though, and I have made it a goal to not lose sight of that revelation.

Maybe that’s why I have started writing again? To find myself, the lost woman in the mom’s body. And you know what? I think it may be working because since I started writing again, I find myself more interesting. I find that I think with a more expressive vocabulary. That can’t hurt the kids, can it? Especially if I use the words out loud.  It’s like my mind was lost at sea and the writing is serving as a locator beacon.

One unforeseen bonus is that I find myself observing some of the irritating and hilarious situations that come up on a daily basis with an eye for detail that will allow me to write about it later. (They do say to write about what you know, after all.) I never realized that it’s almost impossible to observe effectively and freak out at the same time. Bonus!

Maybe I’ll keep writing, see what happens.