Monday, June 20, 2011

Fits and Starts

I guess I've been in a "fit" phase which has nothing to do with "fitness" and everything to do with "snit" and am slowly falling back into a "start" but if I put one more thing in quotations this will be the quickest relapse into not writing in history.

And with that jumble of a run on sentence I welcome myself back to the wonderful world of blogging and hope that someone out there remembers that I once wrote on a regular basis and was occasionally funny, sometimes thoughtful and always loosey goosey with the grammar.

The heart of the matter is that I became bored with writing and just about the time Chevrolet sent me to Memphis, I burned out.

Lame.

The struggle of "mommy-blogging" was the transition. My kids weren't so little anymore that their life was free fodder for my blather and I've always been fairly private about my marriage and quite frankly, there is only so much the Internet wants to read about my dogs...

The dilemma of "what to write" coincided so neatly with my foray into Facebook that it was an almost seamless phasing out of blogging (something which had occupied a great deal of my time) right into a world of status updates... I was able to get feedback I loved from a line or two... FB was the methadone to my blogging habit.

And now it's been years. Seriously. Years since I wrote with any regularity and suddenly I miss it.

Blogging for me began when Hugh and I were considering a second adoption from China and my first followers were all fellow adoptive parents. Through them I branched out into the phenomena of mommy bloggers and found myself truly invested in the lives of women that while I had never met, I considered friends.

It was very much a community... we all sort of mucked in together.

Then the review requests and benefits started to roll in and I found myself on trips and red carpets and with free cars to drive all because I had an audience that corporate America wanted to reach - to be honest with you I found it overwhelming. The more blogging became a job and the less it became a journal of my family's life, the more I found myself not wanting to participate.

So I stopped. I didn't feel like opportunity knocking - it felt like what I never wanted: a full time job.

But now I am 41 (holy shit) and I really don't see myself on the Internet. I am well educated and funny (as far as I know) and I have teenagers and I don't work but with the exception of a few writers, I don't see myself or my life represented. There are design blogs and cooking blogs and beauty blogs, but where are the women in the throes of reinvention?

Those of us who haven't worked and now suddenly have time on our hands... with kids who are about to date no less! My days are now my own. The kids, all 3 of them, are on basically the same school schedule which means from 8 - 3, I can get my freak on.

Confession: I don't actually know what that means.

But if I did, I could. Instead I find myself overwhelmed by the very real possibility that I don't want to really do anything... that I don't have a secret desire to return to school for a Ph.D and become a traveling professor of post WWII modern art (which was my original plan and if you had asked me a few years ago what I was going to do with my time when the kids were in school, that would have been my answer) but now I realize, in all honesty, it just doesn't interest me in the same way... I love it, but not enough to devote my new precious time to it.

This is a very very strange time.

And I know I am not alone. There have to be many of you out there in my position - oddly enviable in it's possibilities and totally terrifying.

So I thought I would write about it.

It's a start.



17 comments:

Amy Y said...

You're still on my reader! What a pleasant surprise :) Welcome back, Mama.

Kristin said...

Amy - you don't know how happy that makes me! xx

Michelle said...

Yay! Missed your writing! FB just isn't the same.

Daniella said...

Nope, your not alone....

Daniella said...

Oops hit publish to quick... Loved seeing you in my google reader :)

Jen on the Edge said...

You're still in my reader. Welcome back, girlfriend.

As for the reinvention thing, I've been working on mine for a couple of years now. I have no idea where I'm going, but I'll figure things out along the way.

Anonymous said...

Write a book, not a blog

M3 said...

Hey great to see you!

My3BoyzRok said...

Kristin...I am thrilled you are blogging because, you your smile and your wit came into my life only in the last 8 months. I wasnt around and didnt have the pleasure of reading your blog back when you were a blogger! (Wow trying saying that 4 times fast!) Coincidentally I am reading abook right now that i was going to be recommending to you> It's called "The gift of an ordinary day! A mother's memoir"... it's about...you guessed it reinvention, kids getting older, high school, college... empty nest etc. etc. Reading your blog will be wonderful for me...i wont feel so alone!
love
Kimberly

Kristin said...

Thanks for the warm welcome, Internet... I'm happy to be here!

Anonymous said...

Please don't stop writing AGAIN. (lol - giving you a hard time) I love you.

Shelley said...

Hey girl. I miss you!! Seems things have gotten away from me. Hope you keep up the writing. But no pressure. : )

Call me and let's plan something ...anything. BTW, Rich is having surgery on THU.

Jenny said...

wow, was cleaning out my list and saw this. I always find those things funny..I have girls going to school 8-3 starting in 2 months and I am starting to freak. not about them in school but what am I suppose to do? so, I guess similar. welcome back.
-Jenny

Kristen said...

oh, I get it.

dgm said...

I was wondering what happened to you! My blogging stopped suddenly, too, largely when I went over to FB. And you're right--it's harder to tell the stories now that the kids are older and we want to respect their privacy (even though, after looking at the public FB pages of my daughter's friends--my daughter's not on--I get the sense that kids these days have no concept of what "privacy" means. Sigh.) So anyhoo, glad you're back and I hope you'll share your journey of discovery in that funny way you do...

Incidentally, word verification: "messie"

Anonymous said...

Just read your blog for the first time today and oddly enough, I am turning 40 in a few days (holy shit as you say) and am trying to figure out my re-invention as well. Please keep writing, I feel that I might need you.
~b

Anonymous said...

What great news! Already hooked