Why I Love (and Hate) Blogging

I think it's pretty obvious that I really like blogging. I wouldn't have spent the last four years pouring my heart and head into this thing if I didn't enjoy it. I do. My blog helps me process how I feel about certain things. It helps me connect with some really amazing people. It serves as my baby book and a way to share stories and pictures with family who live far away. I like to believe that sometimes it's a tool for evangelization. It allows me to help families with questions about speech therapy. And the countless emails I've received from readers with questions related to infertility assure me that it still serves as a beacon of hope or a source of information for those struggling to conceive.

It's all of those things. But it's also a huge time sucker. And an energy drainer. And, if I'm honest, sometimes a chore.

I've never been a secretive or private person. I've always worn my heart of my sleeve and said what I think and not really cared who heard it or what anyone thought. And sometimes that can be a really wonderful quality. Like when Ted and I give the NFP talks on the Engaged Encounter weekends. Staring at a room full of college students and young adults looking at us like we have a third eye or horns coming out of our head. But we're open and totally honest with them when we tell them things they might not know about birth control. When we open their eyes to the fact that it increases your risk for breast cancer and doesn't actually treat a woman's gynecological issues. We're open when we expose our sex life for strangers at the hope of helping them make good decisions with their own sexuality.

And we're able to do this because they are just that, strangers. We don't know that they're all already living together. We don't know that every woman in the room is likely already on the pill. We don't know that they think we're total nut jobs.  We realize these things are pretty likely, but we don't know them. And that helps us present the information in a factual way. Without worrying that we're going to personally offend someone or make anyone feel singled out. Am I making any sense?

That's the way it is with blogging. I write. You read. I don't even know who you are. Sure, I know a lot of my followers and are friends with them either in real life or online. I know that certain family members read regularly even though they rarely say anything. But other than that, I have no idea who reads these words. And I don't know what you think about them. I have family members who know a lot about me from reading these posts over the years, but I know next to nothing about them. They don't blog. We don't talk. We live days away. So it goes. There are college friends reading that I haven't talked to in years. Years! They know so much about me. So much about Hannah and Paul and what is going on in our lives right now. But I can't even remember how many kids they have. Or what their names are. Or what state they're even living in. Because blogging is inherently one sided, no matter how many comments I respond to or facebook friends I have.

And I guess, right now, that kinda bothers me. It bothers me to know so little about certain people who know so much about me. And it bothers me that blogging can sometimes feel like something I need to do rather than something I want to do. I'm not writing in the hopes of coming up with a solution. (Unless of course everyone I care about who is reading this would also start a blog and/or send me a lengthy email about everything that is happening in their life and their views on major moral issues as well as someone creating a computer program that could just read my thoughts so I didn't have to ever sit down and type them out. That would be a doable solution.) And I'm not making any sort of grand blogging exit announcement or fishing for comments begging me to stay. Just....bein' honest.

I like telling people about my life. I like recording it so I can go back and read about it whenever I want. I like the many true and authentic friendships I've forged through blogging and the people I've helped and the people who've helped me. For now, that's still enough to keep me hanging on.

So I'll keep writing. And extolling the virtues of the Catholic Church and complaining about the vices of the culture of death. And handing out personal information about our lives like candy to strangers on Halloween. For now.

I'm not addicted. I can quit any time. Promise ;)