Why I Started Blogging | Day 6/30

Life grants you a restart every time you hit reset. It doesn’t ask why. It offers you space to ask why not?

I started blogging around 2011. I restarted blogging in 2018. Both with different outlooks. Both with an immense sense of fulfillment. Let’s circle back.

The year is 2011… 

My friends and followers on Facebook have gassed me up enough for my writing skills. I see blatant typos and a story disconnected; they see a book deal and some writing honors. They are convinced this is it!

I used to write awful poetry back then. Awful because now I look back and realize I wrote my work in that disgusting Facebook language. Granted, the message would always shine through; it was lazily done. However, I think that editing my work now almost a decade later would give it the lift it so deserved.

My poetry days are behind me now. But I’m grateful for the way they shaped my writing style. I can’t escape Creative Writing even if I wished to.

I had lost my second parent the year before. It hit me two-fold as I never really grieved my mother’s death, which by then was 8 years after. It hit me hard. Anyone who has suffered loss will tell you grief never goes away. Yes, you will suppress it for as long as possible; you will assume you have completely healed. But it will come back to bite you. And bite me, it did.

I did not even realize how lost I was until I gathered my thoughts and expressed them on an unfiltered blog. My words had transcended Facebook walls and became something more memorable and more meaningful than I could’ve possibly predicted. If I were to give it a niche, I would call it a grief blog. I would write while weeping. Those who read my work back then could see all the pain that I was letting go of.  It was a steady accumulation of little moments that filled my silence. It was therapy. It was home. It was right.

Just when I thought I was on the mend after a year of blogging, I lost my grandmother and then my best friend: the pain, the words, the platform. Monthly Apostrophe (a collection of letters sent to my dearly departed) went on for two more years, and in 2014 I took a one-year sabbatical for a digital cleanse of sorts.

That was the year I discovered myself. I peeled off all the layers deep within myself and found an understanding. I stopped publishing but would continue journaling and writing morning pages. None of this strangely deep, sometimes dark writing saw the light of day.

One year is a long time. I went completely blue as well. Sometimes I would struggle to even get out of bed, but I never stopped writing for myself. You can’t see it until you’re out of it. In 2015 after the sabbatical, I published my work again, but it just felt like the end of an era. My blog didn’t feel like an outlet anymore. Sometimes you’re the person going through it, and sometimes you’re the person loving someone through it.

I remembered how to live again but forgot how to write.

The year is 2018… 

If you were born to write, no matter how many times you run away from it, it would always find you back.

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This time I was more mature, self-aware, and emotionally healthier despite the countless triggers that dominate adulthood.

I was ready to relaunch for several reasons:

♦  To share motherhood experiences fearlessly and loudly.

♦  To offer practical tips and hacks for having an organized and creative life.

♦ To inspire my readers to live their truth and connect over shared interests.

Every blogger has a unique voice, and despite the occasional imposter syndrome, we should never be afraid to show it. Traffic should never be the lifeblood of our writing journey. As I evolve, I know my reasons to chisel a deep and lasting crack at this blogging thing will keep changing but what will remain certain is my love for writing. Hopefully, you will stay on with me.