Retread: Madness-To Blog or Not to Blog

This post was originally published in 2010, about a year after I started the blog The Traveling Circus. It’s funny to read now because although it’s been over two years, I still ask myself the same questions today. I guess we’re never really sure where we should be or how to get there. 

Please forgive the crazy posts that follow this. You may notice there are “new” posts that are actually months old. I was trying to do something to help this little engine that could blog grow even an eensy bit. The task involved going back to old posts and editing them and I am revealing my true non-techiness by having them published all over again as if today is August, or July or March ’09. Duh.
Oh well, the good news is that reading my old stuff helped me put today in perspective a little. I have started to get antsy about my “role” as a blogger. I started writing here just to tell the tales of our move. I found myself exhausted repeating the same stories so I started writing them down. Then I started sharing what I had written over the years. Then I started just spouting off! Then I remembered that I was a writer. I have always been a writer but I have never shared it with anyone but teachers and family or close friends who (like it or not) have been “treated” to letters from me. I love to write. I had forgotten that in all the years of teaching other people how to do it.
Throughout the past year, because I am a student by nature, I have immersed myself in and therefore experienced more of the larger blogging community and it makes me itchy. Mostly, it has given me more questions than answers. Should I be more well-known? Should I be trying to get published? Should I have fancier fonts and pictures? Should I call myself a mommy-blogger? Can I call myself a mommy-blogger? What the heck is a mommy-blogger? Should I sell ad-space? Can I sell ad space? Do I want to do any of these things? Really? OR-do I just want to write? If that’s what I want, is that so wrong?
I have written here for a little over a year and some days the posts are pretty darn good (other days, they are total crap-sorry.) I might be able to turn this into more than my online journal. But I’m not so sure that’s for me. From a tech-standpoint, I may still be learning how to do this like someone who actually knows more than just how to put two sentences together, but I have come a long way in a year. I might not be able to handle bigger and I might be alright with that.
I am looking forward to whatever is ahead. I’m excited to learn more and maybe do more if it means that I will be able to bring you, my loyal readers, more. Because that is what has become important, even more than what I write, the people who read this. I started writing for me and now I write for you. And that suits me just fine.
While I figure out where to head, I want to say thank you for coming this far with me. Thank you for hanging around for a year. If you are new here, I promise the posts are usually a little more scintillating than this! If you’ve been around a while, I salute you. You have helped me to open my eyes to a world I thought was closed forever. I get to write, every day and sometimes people even read it. I get to tell my stories. I get to celebrate other women. I get to take picturesand share them with more than just my hard drive. I don’t make a cent and I am still kind of a dummy when it comes to anything more than typing, but I’m loving all of it in spite (or because?) of my ignorance. What more could a girl ask for.
I will leave you with Katherine Graham: To love what you do, and feel that it matters (even if just to me and my kids some day) what could be more fun?
Happy Friday!