There was a post I edited on BlogHer today that I think brilliantly touches on a very sticky subject in the infertility community: hating on the Internet.  Oh, I think it’s fairly rare that we get the type of all out hate going in our community that she discusses in her post, in the same way that in my very liberal, East coast community we rarely get blatant racism.  But that doesn’t mean that we don’t get covert racism.  And I think our community gets this covert pressure, this unspoken (or kindly spoken) message that it’s not okay to be yourself after a certain point in your infertility journey.  And where that point is varies from niche to niche in the infertility community.

Like racism, I think the way through it is to speak about it bluntly.  To look it straight in the eye instead of pretending it doesn’t exist.  Because when you don’t, you get the quiet sort of racism that is prevalent in the north, or the quiet sort of hate that is prevalent on the polite Internet.  If we’re all a little bit racist, then we need to admit that deep down, no matter how kind we think we are, we’re also all just a little bit hateful.

The House Always Wins points out the way we’ve gone from hating things that deserve our disdain, to hating other people for having happy moments.  And when I say “people,” I really mean women.

Contrary to what Heller writes, in the past few years, a wide swath of the social media world has gone from criticizing the terrible shit that needs to be challenged to hating… everything. Apparently, we ran out of bad things to hate (I guess? I’m pretty sure there’s still some racism out there that we didn’t catch), so we started hating the good things, and the earnest, hopeful, without-a-trace-of-irony moments that people once felt safe sharing on social media. Those people being hated are often women, and those moments are often emotional ones. Women who just met a career goal. Women who just got engaged, or who are planning their weddings. Women who are pregnant, or whose IVF finally worked, or whose adoption finally went through. Women talking about hobbies that make them feel confident, happy, and fulfilled.

Yep, IVF success made it on the list, and it should.  IVF success is a perfect example of quiet hate, covert hate.  Rarely (if ever?) has someone started a hate blog about someone who is now finally pregnant after infertility treatments.  But that doesn’t mean that they haven’t gotten a clear message not to talk about their happiness on the Internet.  Whether directly in the form of a comment, or indirectly due to blog posts of others talking about what we shouldn’t talk about on infertility blogs.

It’s also a circular issue: bloggers who speak clearly about how they stop reading other bloggers once they achieve pregnancy then turn around to complain about how no one is reading them anyone once they become pregnant.

And still, there is — when we’re talking about an emotional topic — elements of sensitivity that come into play.  No one who is struggling wants to be reminded that they’re still struggling while someone else has moved ahead to the next leg of the journey.  No one wants to see their life choices put down.  How do we share our good news without being smug, record our pregnancy or parenting milestones without being accused of insensitivity, or move on to living child-free without it being treated as commentary on other ways to resolve infertility?

Because, frankly, I believe that pregnancy and parenting after infertility as well as living child-free after infertility has a place in the actively-treating infertility community, and I always have.  For seven years, I’ve been talking about this circular issue, and why it’s worth supporting those who now out of the trenches because they still have very understanding hands that want to reach backwards and comfort.  And yet, here we are, still discussing this quiet hating.  And perhaps hating is too strong a term, but what else do we call this tendency for women to snark on other women?  Even if you’ve been lucky enough to avoid it yourself, most of us have seen these types of incidents play out in our corner of the blogosphere.

The House Always Wins states that women need to stop adding an asterisk after all their happy news, but I don’t think it’s that simple in our community.  There is a sensitivity line we need to walk, and a blog that completely ignores its readership isn’t having a conversation: it’s talking at vs. talking with.  But how do we take this idea of asking women to support other women and apply it to our unique situation?

Because I don’t want people to water down their content, as The House Always Wins says.  I don’t want people to withhold their story or not talk about their happiness or present a skewed version of their life after treatments because they think it’s what other people want to hear.  Sweeping the reality of pregnancy or parenting or living child-free after infertility under the rug helps no one: it certainly doesn’t help the writer who needs to vent, and it certainly doesn’t help the reader who gets a very unrealistic picture of life after treatments or adoption.

So how do we stop apologizing for our happiness and start continuing to record life, all the while being sensitive?

It’s a hard mixture to achieve.

This is not a post about baseball.  But on Saturday, we went to see the Nationals (remember, I’m a super fan) play the Colorodo Rockies.  It was our first time in the park this season, and when we walked into the stadium, it felt like going home after a long time away.  We have two usual places we sit, either behind home plate or near third base, but Josh suggested that we take four tickets by the Nats bullpen just to switch things up.

It didn’t occur to me until after he bought the tickets that I could possibly be brained in these seats.  He brought his glove to protect me.

While I didn’t enjoy watching the game from that angle — it made me feel very removed from the action — I did enjoy being a few feet away from Roger Bernadina.  He turned around and gazed at us calmly while we jumped up and down, shrieking his name.  Because that’s what super fans do.

The other cool thing was that we were next to the Nationals bullpen.  I hung over the side watching Curtis Ohlendorf warm up before he jogged out to replace Dan Haren.  My boys completely ignored me as I leaned over to stare at them.

“I think you’re being rude,” the ChickieNob informed me.  “How would you feel if people stared at you while you were at work?”

“I would hate it.  But I also wouldn’t take a job that encouraged people to stare at me.  The whole point of being at a baseball game is to watch baseball.  And in order to do that, I have to watch the baseball players.”

“I still think you’re being rude.”

I probably was. But it is true; I would never choose a profession that made people watch me while I did my job.  I would never be on a reality television show or a regular television show.  I wouldn’t be in theater or in a movie.  I wouldn’t be a musician.  I didn’t even love being a teacher, and I set up my classroom with my desk as part of a circle so people were encouraged to look at other students as well as me.  Being a pitcher looks like my version of hell.  You not only have to sit outside, even when it’s really really hot, but people just sit there, looking at you.  Watching your every move.

Being that close to the bullpen was sort of like being at the zoo, with the pitchers as the caged animals.  They sort of were like caged animals.  I mean, they’re animals.  And they were in a cage.  And we were all gawking at them.  The only difference is that they were being paid several million dollars whereas the animals get nothing.  Oh… and when the game was over, they could leave.  So perhaps the analogy falls apart a bit.  But I’ve never been that close to real, live baseball players before.  Exotic baseball players in their natural habitat.

Spaulding Gray has a great part in Monster in a Box where he talks about being in a group of actors and actresses over in Russia for a film festival, and they bump into a group of American high school students who start snapping their picture in the Hermitage.  And the Russia official screams, “Nyet!  No photo!  No!  Nyet!  Nyet!  Nyet photo!  No photograph!  Why are Americans taking pictures of Americans?”

Why do Americans take pictures of other Americans?  It’s almost America’s past time… like baseball.  Taking photos of random people who are not integral to our lives.  I mean, these pitchers have no clue who I am, so why am I documenting their existence on the bench?  What the hell does one do with these photos beyond embed them in a blog post?

And yet I know I would have had regrets if I hadn’t taken them.  And they were being filmed anyway.  My camera just added to the visual cacophony.

It goes beyond just documenting random Americans.  Josh and I talked about Paula Deen yesterday.  And he asked me if I had heard what Kanye named his baby.  And I devour People magazine: why?  Why do I spend so much time reading about other random Americans when I can be putting all of that time towards Candy Crush?  Level 79 isn’t going to solve itself on its own.

It is my blogoversary.  For seven years, I have shown up in this space.  I write pretty much daily.  I post about 5 times per week; sometimes more.  I leave about a quarter of my posts in draft; completed but unpublished.  There is no rhyme or reason to what I choose to post vs. what I choose to leave in draft forever.

I’ve seen blogging change a lot.  When I started, blogs were like little lights flickering from mountain top to mountain top, sending a signal across the land.  Now there are millions… billions?… of blogs.  Seven years ago, the blog was it, the end all and be all, the place you could find me.  Now, we’re expected to spread ourselves thinly across multiple platforms, keeping up with dozens of social media sites.  Or we’re encouraged to drop the blog and go ephemeral — throwing our thoughts into the fast-moving rivers of Twitter or Facebook instead of chiseling the words into slow-moving, semi-permanent blog posts.

Over the last seven years, I’ve seen memes come and go, trends take off and fizzle.  I’ve seen the blog be declared dead more times than I can count.

Which brings us to the most important piece of advice I have to give at this point:

Wait.

If you love blogging, if you get what you need simply from putting words on a screen, tune out the “experts” who tell you that you need to do this or that to be “successful.”  What does that even mean anyway?  Why measure yourself by someone else’s definition of a successful blogger?  Those blogging talking heads aren’t Merriam-Webster.  They do not get to define what makes or breaks a blogger.

YOU get to decide that.  We all individually get to decide that.

*******

Every few months, a new trend is floated into the blogosphere.  If you want to have a successful blog, you have to go visual!  You have to have images!  You have to be pinnable!  No… wait… to have a successful blog, you have to be on Twitter!  You have to have a lot of followers!  No… wait… to have a successful blog, you need to make your blog look like every single other space out there, so it doesn’t reflect your personality at all and instead drops you neatly into a single niche that you can present yourself in as an expert.

When all those ideas are floated by me, I nod.  And then I wait.  Because those speakers are anxious to make something happen, to make something go viral or find the next big thing.  And I’m happy to just be trucking along, putting words on a screen.  I get everything I need to get out of blogging; I don’t need to change this space or the way I write.  I like where I put my words.  I like the speed in which they come as well as how long they stick around for readers to find them.

The reality is that if you keep chasing all the things you’re supposed to do with your blog it will cease to be YOUR space in the same way that if you spend your life trying to be like someone else, you will miss you on being you.  I didn’t really get that when my parents would tell me that when I was a kid, and I was moaning that I wasn’t like this person or that person.  But I get it now.

So if Twitter is your thing, go do Twitter.  And if Facebook is your thing, go spend time on Facebook.  If you’re a big fan of hangouts, Google+ is for you.  Images make you happy?  Then there is Pinterest or Instagram.

But I like blogs.  I like reading them, and I like writing one.  So this is what I’m going to do, year after year after year, plodding along with the same thing and waiting when people tell me about the next big thing I need to do in order to be successful since it always changes anyway.

Thank you for being here for seven years.  Some of you have been here since the beginning.  Some of you have found this space quite recently.  And I’m grateful for each and every one of you who pick up my words, consider them, and share your own.

It is not often that I am left speechless, but three of my friends — Jona, Jessica, and Kathy — threw a book party for me last night to celebrate the release of Measure of Love.  I thought a few people would get together, drink a little wine, I’d talk about the book.  But… no.  They threw something so much larger than that.  Starting with a cake, the size of a pillow, that was a re-creation of the cover.

Tons of food and drinks for the many people who came.

Copies of the book for all the guests.

Little wine glass tags with an image of the book in organza bags as favours.

I swear I wasn’t drunk in this picture.  Even though I look drunk.  I was just teary.

And we made Jona cut the cake because she’s the brave one in the group.  How do you cut into a cake like that?

Do you see why I am so blown away?  Because who the hell is lucky enough to have friends like this?  Thank you is much too small a word; overwhelmed doesn’t even touch on it.  I am so grateful that I have these women in my life.  There are three billion ways the women who were there last night make my life better.  This was just the icing on the cake.

This is obviously for the other people playing the game.  Everyone not playing Candy Crush, feel free to ignore.  And for the love, if you haven’t started playing, DON’T.  I really wish I hadn’t started this.

So.

How the hell does one win this level without combining the doughnut (that brown ball with the coloured flecks) with the striped candy?  When I can do that, it obviously clears a large chunk of the board.  But I’ve only gotten that a few times.  Is there any way to win this without getting the doughnut/striped candy combo?  Should I try to clear the top first or start at the bottom so I get the cascade effect?  Or should I be aiming to clear the chocolate while it’s still contained by the licorice, or clear the whipped cream from the middle before I tackle something else?

With every other level, the priority has been clear.  With this one, I can’t tell what to worry about first.

How the hell do I pass this level?  I’ve been on it since I wrote that last post about level 70.

I am now understanding that this is going to happen every few boards, and I hopefully won’t waste your eyes bemoaning this game.  But this is for my health.  I’ve told Josh that I’m trying to stave off Alzheimer’s after reading about this study.  I’m hoping Candy Crush counts since it is about spatial relations and strategy and… OKAY, I know this isn’t really that mentally stimulating, but please, for the love, I need to pass this level.  And then I promise not to bother you until I reach the next one I can’t pass.