If you’ve been following Beyond Mommying through the years, you’ve probably noticed a significant drop in new content.
In fact, when I glanced at my site stats earlier this week, I myself was surprised that my last new post (prior to yesterday) was 2 months ago.
How could that be?!?
Well, it turns out I’ve only actually published 5 new posts in 2019. That’s a far cry from the one a day I was putting out there when I began writing.
But that was over 6 years ago. And a lot has changed in those long years.
When I started out as a blogger, I had no idea what I was doing. I didn’t start a blog to make money or become Facebook famous. I actually didn’t even know you could make money with blogging until a full year into my journey.
I started writing to fill a void in my life. To make use of my knowledge and talents that weren’t being appreciated by the traditional. I had two young daughters, a baby on the way, was trying to integrate back into American life, and needed an outlet.
Those first 301 posts I published in 2013 were my thoughts on parenthood and life. They were often short stories or musings. Sometimes I would add a relevant picture. But often I didn’t.
And then I learned from networking with other bloggers posts with pictures did better. So I started taking the time to take or track down pictures for every post. And soon after I found out pictures should be “high quality” which meant more time editing and formatting pictures. It often takes longer than writing my posts.
I launched my Facebook page the same day I created my blog. But I didn’t join Pinterest for another 6 months. Twitter was another 4 months after that. And, finally, Instagram more than a year after Beyond Mommying became a thing. (And a lot of other platforms that didn’t last or I didn’t enjoy and so abandoned.)
But all those things? They took more time. Each platform requires its own graphic. Each account needs regular “interaction” to grow. And that all takes time.
All those years, I did it without much interaction coming back to me. I’ve never gotten a lot of likes or comments or shares or re-anythings.
I began submitting my articles to other sites. I’ve been published numerous places all over the internet, sharing my side of parenting. And I saw those articles do well on those sites. I saw the thousands of comments and shares on those other sites pages, but none of it came back to me. Those reactions to my writing belonged to someone else.
And I was okay with it. On my own, I was small but my stats showed that I was reaching people. That’s what mattered. Even if people didn’t respond back to me, it was ok because I know that sometimes those who need to hear things the most are the ones who sit in silence.
But over time, my family grew bigger and more complicated. And the hours I spent putting out new content, only to receive silence back, quickly became drowned out by the noise around me. The noise of our busy schedules, the noise of my children’s growth and need for privacy, and the noise of their little voices asking for my attention.
And suddenly, the silence wasn’t worth it any longer. The words that now constantly fill me up inside, my reality of motherhood and marriage and life are no longer things that I care to put out for public scrutiny. Even if those words could help people, it matters more now who they might hurt.
The decline has been slow, but steady. I held on as long as I could. I tried to force it for a long time. I hoped deep inside that I would eventually feel the desire to come back to writing. I lived with immense guilt for basically abandoning what, at one point, was another one of my babies.
But…Life changed. Family changed. I changed.
Hitting “publish” no longer brings me relief and happiness. The joy I used to feel by “getting it all out,” or sharing something that was genuinely helpful or useful no longer feels important to me. I’ve come to a place where a lot of what I would write about feels insignificant and unimportant in the larger scheme of life.
So I’ve basically given up on writing.
And you know what? I’m ok with this, too.
Because it’s not “good-bye,” it’s “see you around.”
I know Beyond Mommying isn’t going anywhere, it will always be here when I need it. I can come back and visit whenever I feel the need or desire.
And while I can’t say if I’ll ever return to my former writing self, I know for sure we’ll all be fine either way.
