Why I Blog by Geeky Mummy
This is a guest post by Geeky Mummy for the Great British Blog Festival.
I was completely unaware of personal blogging until a year or so ago, and stumbled over the concept through the online parenting and pets forums at Craigslist. ?Get a blog? people would reply if a poster wrote an enormous long diatribe. My good friend and fellow Craigslist junkie did just that, and when I read her blog (which is here, at from stage dives to station wagons) I was hooked. My dear friend, who moved up to Seattle and whom I miss very much, leapt right of the page, her sassy humor translating perfectly to the written word, her hilarious boys, her quirky house, her whole life all right there for me to read about. It brought me closer to her.
I started my own shortly after discovering hers. With my close family in the UK, and friends scattered the world over I try to stay in touch by phone and email, but realized that blogging could give me a whole new way of communicating. I could craft with words a glimpse into our life. Anecdotes and events, fleeting feelings, could be preserved when I felt them. Instead of feeling at a loss for words on a hurried phone call, sandwiched between breakfast and swim class, I could bring my family into our lives on my own timetable. Unlike a lot of people who guard their personal blogs from real life friends, I started mine for friends and family, then it evolved into something more.
I was always a diarist, but had stopped writing since marriage and kids swept up my time. Blogging unleashed the wordsmith in me and I started to find that it was helping me navigate my life in ways I didn’t even realize I needed. Helping me process emotion. Soothing and directing the constant narrative in my head. I realized all over again how much I need to write. I can’t imagine being without it now. Steeped in science at work, I rarely used the artistic side of my brain. Now my long dormant joy in wordcraft has been rejuvenated and I am a better person, a more reflective and thoughtful one, for it.
At first my blog was read only by friends and family, at least to my knowledge, since I didn’t know I could track visitors, but by blogging myself I discovered the whole world of other bloggers out there. Even more than writing, I love reading. I found myself reading blogs from people I didn’t know in the conventional sense. I found myself, never restrained in conversation either in life or on the internet, from commenting on their blogs. I found this amazing supportive network of almost strangers, taking care of each other in cyberspace.
I have got to know people who are struggling with challenges that I have yet to face in my life. Cancer, debilitating but undiagnosed illness, addiction, divorce, the death of a parent, learning disabilities, a very sick child. The death of a child. Stepping into these people’s lives brought home to me the fact that we live amongst tragedy, but also that we are incredibly resilient. I became aware for the first time that at some point death and illness will strike my life too. That it is not if, but when. I know already that when something unexpected and horrible does hit our family, blogging, and the support of other bloggers, will be one of the ways I will cope.
That has been the greatest gift to me, finding wonderful writers, photographers and friends out there sharing their thoughts and their lives with the world. I’m proud to be a tiny little part of it.
