AGKI miss the good ole days of blogging, back when it was brand new, before it was even called “blogging.” We were just writing about our lives, sharing stories to connect, not to sell.
There’s nothing wrong with selling, of course. Many of us have personal businesses, and storytelling helps, but sometimes I think we — I include myself — have lost the plot.
As I write this, I’ve been up since 2:50 am. I went to bed bone-tired from a beautifully chaotic day of watching a whole gang of grandchildren, so I expected to sleep in late (late for me being 8:00). Instead, my brain woke me up to get the day started and, despite my best attempts, I ended up rolling out of bed a half hour later. It reminds me of how early I used to get up in the early 2000s, back when I blogged regular life and shared my story, posting photos and anecdotes of my own small children (who also left me bone-tired, but it was also my everyday life then, so I noticed it less…perhaps).
My alarm would go off at 3:00 am. I was excited to greet the day, to have those precious hours before my kidlings woke up to write and work on my business endeavors. I was so much younger then, true, but the passion, the pursuit of my goals, was beautiful. Life was already full and busy, and it definitely wasn’t easier then (I wrote an ebook called, “I’ll Write When the Kids Are Grown” and ran a successful ‘zine called, “The Writing Parent,” all about helping parent writers find harmony between parenting and finding time to write), but somewhere along the way, I…well…keep losing my way.
In more recent years, I’ve pushed my waking until the last possible moment, allowing more for a natural wakeup time that started coming later and later. This has in part been due to AGE and CHANGES OF LIFE (hooray.), but I am realizing in the last week that it has also been due to other circumstances. While I won’t go too far into it, I was laid off from my job as a peer recovery coach last week. I miss my coaching clients and the beautiful work we were doing that came to an abrupt stop (with me — but I know they will continue on because they are incredible like that!). All the feelings around this are complicated and frustrating, but…it was necessary.
Necessary because I’m 50 (and a half!) now and time keeps marching on and I keep not marching on toward my own goals and dreams. Over the last decade+ I’ve poured into other people’s lives for other organizations as an advocate, coach, and more. I’ve started and stopped my own goals to build up places where I worked and the people I worked with. Losing my job pushed me out of a place I was holding onto for my clients, out of comfort and into uncertainty. Except, I have already proven to myself I know how to build. Unfortunately, I also know how to burn. If burnout doesn’t happen on its own, I have matches. I was doing a very good job of not burning anything down; I was working to build and safely exit the building. My layoff just moved the timeline. Forcefully.
So, my brain is waking me up with an enthusiastic “LET’S GOOOOOOOO!!!” and sure, I’ll probably need a nap later — or a super early bedtime — but this last week I have slept better than in years, and my chest has stopped hurting at night, and my brain has stopped running through what I should say, what I should not say, etc. to situations that are unhealthy. I am free again to build, to dream, to have bone-tired days with grandchildren, to be up in the middle of the night, to rest as needed, to make art, to be fully me, to create and write, and to greet each day with enthusiastic passion and hope.
And to return to the good ole days of blogging. Because if I’m going to do the rest of my life my way, I can do this my way, too.
*On a whim, I checked to see if the domain for “The Writing Parent” was finally free from the clutches of domain name squatters, and lo! It was! AAAAAAAHHHHHH!!! I don’t know what this means, but I had to get it back. Stay tuned?
