Category — Blogoversary

It is my 14th blogoversary today, which is a fitting time to tell you this story about how my blog saved my life* this week.

Frost appeared on the contents of the freezer. We tried clearing out the ice in the freezer, but it didn’t fix the problem, and it only got worse—the refrigerator suddenly didn’t feel as cold as normal. We knew we had encountered a similar problem in the past and removed the back panel, but we couldn’t figure out how to do it again. We were stuck, and set up a repair call despite my fears of having workpeople in the house in the time of COVID-19.

Then I remembered that I wrote a blog post about the experience. A quick search brought up the correct post. It didn’t contain many details, but we now had a date, so we could look through files and try to find the video we used. We found that, too, though we still didn’t have instructions for how to get off the back panel. We were stuck.

Except… my blog gave me the date. So I went through my photos taken on that day, and found that we had photographed the location of the hidden screw we needed to remove.

The next morning, we woke early to get started. The video didn’t tell us to unplug the refrigerator, but my blog post did, so we unplugged it to be safe. It took about two hours to melt and clear out all of the ice and unblock the drain tube. This time, we documented the experience in detail with notes in my journal and videos. We’re waiting out the weekend to make sure we actually fixed the problem, but it’s currently looking and sounding better. It comes full circle because I’m now writing about it on my blog once again so I remember what we did.

For 14 years, I have shown up in this space. 30% of my life so far. I have documented the highs and lows, the news articles that caught my eye, the books I’ve read, the freezers I’ve saved. I’ve recorded my feelings about infertility and loss, the people who have come and gone, the changes that have taken place through my thirties and forties. This blog has been an amazing receptacle to hold my memories and return them to me when I need them.

Thank you, blog, for being there for me for 14 years. And thank you, to all of you, for reading it.

* Clearly, I do not live and breathe due to my blog, and the title is more a tongue-and-cheek usage of “saved” as in kept content. Though you can never be too careful right now about COVID-19. And all joking aside, I do believe that the connections I’ve made here have strengthened my mental health and wellbeing. So, yes, I don’t think “saved” is too strong a word.

This blog is 13 years old this week. I started it back in 2006, and I’ve posted on average 5 times per week for the last 13 years.

I’ve thought about stopping the blog about 100,000 times. I know, not the typical thing a person admits on their blogoversary, but you can’t talk about how you keep something going for 13 years without a break without admitting the other option: stopping.

There is a very simple way to get a 13-year-old blog: write for 13 years. That’s it. There is also a simple way to not have a 13-year-old blog: don’t write for 13 years. There is no magic, no advice beyond two words: show up. Sit down in front of the computer and talk about what is happening in your life or something you read or something that is annoying you at the moment or the very cute thing your guinea pig did when you opened the refrigerator door. I do that because the alternative is not doing it. Until I am completely certain that I’m ready, I will continue to show up because I know that once I take a tiny break, it will be over. I won’t be able to convince myself to show up again.

Because blogs take time. A lot of time. And you need to write them because you need to write one, not because you need someone to read it. That is a hard lesson to learn and take to heart. I’ve said it a lot over the years. I don’t check my stats anymore because it helps me to maintain that focus: I write for myself. I love that you are here and that you’re reading what I write. Blogging without anyone reading is very lonely, but loneliness isn’t a reason to stop. It’s just a feeling — one that is important to acknowledge — but it isn’t the endgame. I am the endgame, and I choose to show up.

So thank you for being here. Thank you especially to the ones who have been around for 13 years (or close to it). And thank you to the newer people who have found me along the way. I am so grateful for every word read.

Not sure what #MicroblogMondays is? Read the inaugural post which explains the idea and how you can participate too.

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Today my 12th blogoversary intersects with the 200th #Microblog Monday.  I have been writing this blog for 12 years.  12 years!  200 of those posts have been Microblog Monday.  The other several thousand (because I write on average 5 posts per week, 52 weeks per year) have been random mishmash from my clotty uterus to the twins to my extreme love of quokkas to bothering Josh with my feelings at 11 pm.

About 1/4th of my life has been spent writing this site.  Isn’t that mind-blowing?  A quarter of my life.

I have no great wisdom to impart except write.  Keep at it.  The way you amass 12 years is showing up for 12 years.

Thank you for being here.

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Are you also doing #MicroblogMondays? Add your link below. The list will be open until Tuesday morning. Link to the post itself, not your blog URL. (Don’t know what that means? Please read the three rules on this post to understand the difference between a permalink to a post and a blog’s main URL.) Only personal blogs can be added to the list. I will remove any posts that are connected to businesses or are sponsored post.

I am currently in a prime number birth year, and this space is in a prime number blogging year: eleven.  Eleven years ago, Josh set up my blog for me.  This place on the web has been his best gift.  (I mean, beyond always supporting my half-baked ideas and giving me space to be myself.)

Thank you, Josh.

I get a little teary when I talk about the Internet because — at least for me — it has done exactly what it was supposed to do.  It connected me.  I was over here, in this tiny bubble on the side of life, and it brought my bubble in contact with millions of other people’s bubbles.  We’ve knocked into each other and drifted apart from one another and stuck together and merged into bigger bubbles from time to time.

Thank you, everyone else.

I don’t have a lot of advice left to give about blogging; it’s really been the same thing year after year.

WAIT.

I have one last thing to say. (Until next year, when I will say another one last thing.)

Don’t look at your stats.  Platforms try to make those numbers easily accessible, but you should do everything in your power to NOT look at them.  At all.  Don’t peek at them from time to time.  Don’t think about them.  Don’t Google what is a good amount of page views.  Don’t think about numbers at all.

Because here’s the thing.  You will be happy if you never look at them.  If you write and assume that there are people quietly reading from their phone, not commenting but still thinking about your words all day.  You will be happy if you don’t know your stats AND you don’t know anyone else’s stats.

I really think Buddha had it right with the Four Noble Truths.  Expectations hinder us.  Expectations throw us off our game.  Expectations make us feel disappointment.

I once dated a guy who tried to teach me this.  We argued about it all the time because I didn’t think you could live without expectations.  I was an expectation-centric person, and the concept of going through life without facts and forecasts was unfathomable.

But I think I get it with this blogging thing.  Every once in a while I need to peek at my stats because someone else needs the number.  And it either makes me feel like shit if the stats are not where I thought they’d be, or the numbers inflate my ego and distract me if they’re higher than I thought they’d be.  So I don’t look at them.  I don’t think about them.  I just write.

And I hope you just write.  There are fewer and fewer of you out there, writing.  I wish you would open your blogs again and jot down a post.  It doesn’t need to be high art.  It doesn’t need to happen with regularity.  It just needs to happen enough that you feel that release of your words going out into the universe.  So that your bubble knocks up against everyone else’s bubble.

I’m floating out here.  I hope you are, too.

The title isn’t hyperbole.  10 years ago, I started blogging regularly — about 5 times per week — in this space.  All lives change over a 10 year period, but when I look back at what has happened over the last decade, I can say, with certainty, that it was my blog that set everything else in motion.

So thank you, little Me-shaped space.

All the changes together add up to something huge, but the moments themselves were so small that if I hadn’t continued to write, I wouldn’t have known what else was to come.  Isn’t that such an odd thought?  In the individual moments, my blog has felt inconsequential, and I’ve considered walking away from it a few times, thinking it would free up time and not impact anything else.

But that’s not true.  If I had stopped writing in this space at any point along the way, I would have missed out on so many paths that would have never been opened if not for sticking with this journey.

So that is my only advice that I can give you after 10 years of blogging.  If you love it, if you love to write, then keep at it even if you don’t think you’re headed in the right direction.  Even if you think no one is reading and writing your words will never impact your world.  At the very least, you’ve written your truth.  At the most, your words will lead you somewhere amazing.

10 years ago, the twins were toddlers.  They were about to give up their bottles.  We were trying to add another child to our family, and I was emotionally drowning.  I had stopped teaching and didn’t really know how I was going to contribute financially to the family and be at home with the kids at the same time.  I had an MFA, but I hadn’t published a book.  I had a translation degree, but I couldn’t get translation work.  I was so computer-phobic that I didn’t even know how to start a blog.  Josh set up this space for me.

10 years later, the twins have graduated elementary school.  They’ve been following their own bliss, making video games and writing articles.  We walked away from the fertility clinics, and most days, I’m at peace with that decision.  I work out of the house doing freelance writing and editing.  I’ve published 5 books, have a contract for a 6th, and am finishing up a 7th.  I taught myself several programming languages, and I’m currently working on making my first app.  I’m considered an “expert” in online engagement, for what that’s worth.

I think most people will look at this space and think about how my blog had a hand in my work accomplishments, and certainly, it has.  Would I have published all the books without it?  Maybe.  I don’t know.  Would I have made dozens of trips to the White House without this space?  Definitely not.  I’m not minimizing the work stuff — it has changed my life.

But what I always think about is the drowning.  The emotional drowning.  And how this space released something in me so I could breathe again.  It connected me to others who have held me up over the years so I’ve never felt like I was drowning again.  This blog changed my life because without all of you, I don’t know where I would have ended up.  Nowhere good.  You yanked me out of my head and let me know what there were so many millions of people out there who were on parallel paths to my own.  That is priceless.

Thank you for being here for the last 10 years.  Thank you for responding to my words, which was the fuel that kept me writing.  And that’s what I needed to do: write myself out of my head and into a community of “me, too.”  Thank you for catching me when I jumped here.