I know that I am not a very good blogger. I write scientific papers fairly well but I lack a flair for the other kind of writing. Despite my lack of innate ability I started this blog as an outlet for sharing emotions that I had to keep bottled up in real life.
In so doing I discovered an amazing world of women who were experiencing similar emotions on similar journeys AND who expressed their feelings and experiences with amazing eloquence and style.
I have spent a lot of my life not having a solid sense of who I am. I have a particular clothing and hair style that I like and that seem to be highly socially acceptable, but my personality is much more bland and insecure. I can fake or ignore the insecurity a lot of the time, but I am finding it creeping up when I think about my blogging. I want to keep writing, keep documenting my journey, but I feel like I need a style, a theme to make it work. The fertility treatments and then pregnancy provided a simple framework to follow. But what about now?
So many women shift their blogging beautifully after a baby arrives. But I can't see a cohesive theme, trend or story to my all-over-the-place life right now. Figuring out how to modify my blog gets into an artistic world I left back in college (I went to college intending to be a theater major but once I got there I realized that I wasn't very good compared to most of the others, so I switched career paths dramatically, pun intended).
Since I feel like I need to take baby steps towards getting myself back into a new equilibrium I am going to try something small. Here goes:
The wonderful today: Sharing my baby with new and old friends at an easter party. And mostly, when a dear friend cried with happiness for me.
The sucky today: I am so freaking tired that I don't think quite right. It frightens me, seriously. And today, Dh seems to think that time spent with the baby AND me equals time he covers baby duty FOR me so I can get a break... wtf? I really seriously need more than 2 hours of uninterrupted sleep sometime soon.
The philosophical observation: Infants have no sense of proportionality.
You write what you feel and you write when you need to. I don't think that there is a better style of blogging than that.
ReplyDeleteI very much enjoy reading your blog - and don't notice any flair lacking. Please continue, and know that everyone, at times has their doubts, but they should not hold us back!
ReplyDeleteSleep deprivation is the worst. Is there anyone that can help out? My dear friend looked after our kids for a whole afternoon one time and allowed me to sleep for 4 hours. I nearly married her!!
ReplyDeleteFor what it's worth I like your blog. I relate to the way you write and what you cover.
Theme? We were supposed to have a theme and cohesion to our blogs? Well, I'm SOL then too!
ReplyDeleteSeriously though, no one is grading you here - just express yourself in whatever way feels good at the time. Don't think too much about it, just let it be. I'll keep reading.
And you need to get sleep, STAT! Explain to DH the deal, lay out exactly what you need from him (men are thick sometimes, need seemingly-obvious things spelled out), like "you take M for the next 4 hours. I'm going to sleep. feed her the pumped breastmilk here" pointing to the bottle. Sleep will help clear up some of the confusion and self-doubt too I bet.
I hope you do keep blogging ... I love your writing voice. And there are so few blogs out there that try to document the balance of being a working mom, especially a working mom in academia (do you read Mama, PhD on the Chronicle?) ... I think you're going to have plenty to write about. Sleep deprivation clouds your thinking ... it's amazing that we function at all these first three months! If I were there I'd bring you some tea and muffins and go for a walk with you, and take the baby for a little while so you could nap ... you need a little TLC. :)
ReplyDeleteI love your writing and blog and plan to continue following your journey. Hope you're able to get at least a little break from the sleep deprivation soon, that has to be rough! Glad you were able to spend those wonderful moments with your friends ((hugs))
ReplyDeleteThe sleep deprivation thing gets better... Last night was the FIRST night that I got 4 hours (thank you, Penelope!). But I have been getting used to the short sleep intervals, and am less retarded. I still don't know if I can do any of the most creative aspects of science, but I could certainly run some analyses and stuff.
ReplyDeleteI really really want you to continue this as a baby blog. I very much want to continue hearing your perspective on this whole endeavor. Especially as Peep gets more interactive, but it isn't at all in the way I'd expect-- she seems to be all instinct, and it's all designed to evoke stuff from me-- well, it's super interesting and wonderful that I have an evolutionary biologist (also animal behavior?) person to share it with. But that's not why I like your posts-- I also really appreciate your honesty and wit. It is definitely interesting and fun to do non-science writing in the blogs, isn't it?Especially with no pressure to be good at it...