Who knows what this post will turn out to be. Partial weekend update. Partial Freud analysis. Partial broad, sweeping generalizations without saying anything. Absolute, crazy ramblings? Yes. That I can guarantee.
Here's the thing. I haven't been blogging as much of late. As I mentioned earlier, part of that is because I am being insanely harsh on myself with where I am in life right now and that's not really something pretty to blog about. I've started and stopped more posts than I can count. When I started looking back through my posts to do a year in review summary, I became positively fed up with how cheerful they were. Five posts a week of absolute. bullshit. Not that I want this space to become depressing, or grim or even my personal journal. But. I do want it to be an accurate reflection of my life. And life is not all sassy moments and giggles. Mostly. But not always.
It's hard to balance how much truth to let out on this little space. Because of course in any of our lives, we are not the sole characters. And so not only do I struggle with how much "real," I struggle with respecting the privacy of the other main actors in my life. Blogging is a very solo act. And sometimes that's great, but that's also not very real.
Back and forth back and forth.
I think the second straw that broke the proverbial back was the latest link-up that went around about "If I were telling the truth...." Did I absolutely love the idea? Yes. Did I love how purely honest women got about hating blogging, doubting themselves and getting jealous? Yes. Did I hate that it took a one-time-only link-up to make people feel it was acceptable to voice the negative for once in their life? YES. Why do we only share our struggles and messy parts when someone decides it's okay for a 10 day link up? Yes, I want to be uplifted when I come to Bloglandia. Yes, I want to giggle. But I also don't want to feel like shit because I'm being painted a fake picture that all these talented, well-rounded women have their lives together 24/7/365 with plenty of time for DIY, nail painting and wine sipping. Because that's not real. And it should be okay to talk about what we're struggling with more than once a year when a link-up goes big. (Though it was a great link-up, don't get me wrong.)
Basically, I've found two things in looking back at an almost-year's worth of blogging.
1) My posts are not fully reflective of the wide spectrum of life. I describe my blog as Unreal--both the "hysterically how do you get yourself in that situation" and the "this would only happen to you, how" situation. Mostly, I've been sticking to hysterical. I want to find a way to make it more reflective of the whole range of life, while still not making it a personal journal (though isn't that in actuality what they are?).
2) If I can't write about everything, I tend to write about nothing. And I'd rather write than not write. So I'm sorry if you come here for the sass and are disappointed that there will be a broader spectrum of posts. The sass will still be there, frequently--that I can promise. But, I can't be sassy without everything else too.
In the end, the struggle is this. I want the blog to be more honest, but I don't want to lose readers. I struggle with the idea that people come to Bloglandia for honesty. I think they come for a distraction. For entertainment. And sometimes honesty, but not too much. I've seen completely honest blogs fail while blogs with top-ten lists and sassy gifs who never publish "content" soar. So, personal jury is still out on the priority of "honesty" in blogs.
And as for the weekend update, I've come to the end and realized that I'm not really ready to blog about that yet. Which seems unfair, to request prayers and yet say "but I can't tell you why." It makes me feel like I'm in 6th grade bargaining secrets for best friends. I don't know.
Sorry for the semi-shitty post.
But in actuality, not sorry.
And if you made it to the end of that long ass post, thank you! You win a puppy. Just kidding I don't have puppies.
How will your blog change in 2014?
Why do you come to Bloglandia?
