Thoughts on my much belated blogoversary

I've been neglecting my blog.  It's easy to say that life has been busy, I've been overwhelmed, etc.  It's easy to make excuses and find other things to do then sit down and write, but that's not why I'm not sitting down and writing.  You see, I realized a few weeks ago that my blogoversary had passed by, and I started thinking about why I started this blog a year ago and if it had achieved the things that I wanted it to achieve. And I realized that the answer to that is, kind of.  I mean, I really wanted to be part of a community that understood my perspective on life and parenting through the lense of infertility, and I am.  I really wanted to be able to voice my feelings about everything, because I feel like infertility has changed everything in my life.  And I'm not even close to doing that.

I started to really realize that when I was reading a post awhile back that the lovely Eve wrote in response to the whole PAIL (Parenting After Infertility or Loss) situation started.  In part, that post was about censorship.  Which made me start thinking about my blog and what I say, or more importantly what I don't say.  I actually wrote a blog post about the whole thing.  Which of course none of you ever read because I never published it.  I didn't publish it for one of the million reasons that I don't publish lots of the posts that are sitting in my archives, never having been read by anyone but me.  What if it says something that would offend someone, or what if I'm writing about this community but I don't really "belong" enough to be writing about it.  What if somebody I know finds this blog and realizes it's me.  What if I've said something that hurts their feelings.  What if I say something that hurts anyone who reads it.  I could go on, but I'll spare you.

There are so many ways that I censor my writing.  Down to the fact that I realized all of my posts, even the ones where I am so worn out or worn down and just am feeling desperate, always end on an up note.  Because I feel blessed by my life and I don't want to sound like I'm complaining.  I can never just say that I'm having a hard time.  I have to say that I'm having a hard time, but it's okay, and sometimes it just isn't.  I censor so much, that I wonder how much of myself actually comes out here at all.  I realized that I'm trying so hard to make sure that nobody knows who I am or is hurt by what I might say, that nobody knows anything about me really.  I'm this shadow of a person because I check every single word that comes out of my mouth.  I'm like an infertile stepford wife.  And I don't feel good about that.

I'm so impressed with all of the people I've gotten to know who share so much of themselves.  I know it can't be easy, especially the kinds of thoughts and feelings that come when you're part of this community.  And I want to be more like that.  You all deserve to know the real me, because you've given me the opportunity to know the real you.  And so I'm going to start challenging myself.  Challenging myself to be more real, to let down my guard, and to talk about who I am and not just vague shadows of what I think.  I can't promise I'll be good at it, but I hope you'll stick with me as I try.

As part of that, I also want to highlight other bloggers who really inspire me.  Inspire me with their honesty, their openness, and what seems like an easy ability to know themselves and know their blogs.  So every Sunday I'm going to start the week with this bit of inspiration as a way to drive myself all week long.  I'm going to focus first on bloggers that I already know, but I'm also on the search for new blogs that inspire me as well.  If there's anyone that you'd like to recommend, please do!

So it's taken me quite some time to get this whole post written but it feels so good to do it.  I feel like this year of my blog is going to be the year that I figure things out more and that I open up and am able to be more of myself.  I know, here I am ending on on up note again, but this time I mean it.  It's scary to open up and let people know more about your true self, but it can also be so rewarding.  And that's what I'm focused on.  Because what's the point of doing all this work to edit myself.  If I'm going to do that, why bother blogging at all.  Which I'm surly not ready to stop doing yet.  I have too much I'm just itching to say.