An Open Letter to My Non-Blogging Friends

Hello, all. You know who you are–you’re the folks who read my blog posts but don’t write blogs of your own. I want you to know that this post is just for you. (Bloggers, like Allison and Jennifer, both of whom wrote posts that inspired this one, are more than welcome to read along!)

Blogging is a tricky thing. I’ve had friends call it “self-indulgent,” as if blogging is like eating a really good piece of candy. (Trust me, it’s not.) I’ve had friends ask when I’m going to write a viral post–as if I just haven’t gotten around to that. In short, I’ve answered many questions which reveal how difficult it is for non-bloggers to understand what it is bloggers do. So, for that reason, I’m here to clarify a few of the more important points.

It’s scary. Sometimes I write posts that are really personal, like this one about my family’s history of depression. Sometimes I write posts that are potentially controversial, like this one about choosing to pursue a career full-time while I raised children. (It’s crazy that this should even be a controversial topic, but it is.) Sometimes I write posts that are a little bit silly, like this one about making peace with my hair. Because the Internet is a wide-open arena, you never know what you’re going to get after you push the Publish button. But I keep writing anyway, because sometimes the best possible thing happens: something I’ve written connects with someone who needs to read it.  Which is kind of the point, because . . .

I see blogging as an extension of my day job. For tax purposes, my blog qualifies as a hobby–I’m not making an income from it. In fact, I took down some of the third-party ads I’d installed, which actually might have generated a little cash, because I didn’t like what they were advertising. I did that because I think of this blog as an extension of what I do in my daily life, which is to help people become better human beings. I do this through teaching literature and women’s studies classes, mostly, though I also do this through the events I schedule on campus and in the one-on-one meetings I have with students who are struggling to figure things out.  I think of my blog posts as a series of one-on-one meetings I have with readers who are struggling with some of the same things I am (or have been, at some point.) I don’t claim to have all the answers. I do claim to have a teeny tiny bit of wisdom gleaned from experience.

I love feedback. Whether it’s a positive comment or a negative one, I love it when people respond to a post. I really love it when people share a post through Twitter or Pinterest or Facebook. I love this for practical reasons–because shares help me get a better rating among search engines like Google, which means I’m more likely to show up on the first page of results. (I recently found that one of my posts came up as the #2 item on a Google search, which might have been one of the most exciting moments of my life.) But mostly I love this because it tells me that I’m doing what I intend: connecting with people.

It hurts my feelings to be ignored. The vast majority of Internet content gets no response at all. I understand this. But it really bums me out when I post something and hear nothing in response–even from my friends and family members. It feels like I did something wrong, or I wasted my time in writing that post. My rational brain knows this probably isn’t true–people are busy, they read but don’t comment, etc.. But my feelings still get hurt. That’s just how it is. And therefore . . .

I get discouraged. I’ve been writing this blog for less than a year, but there are still days when I think What’s the point? No one’s reading this stuff anyway. Fortunately, there are far more days when I read an article and think That’s a great topic for a blog post, or when someone sends me an article and says “This sounds like something you’d write about on your blog,” or when a reader says something positive about a post. Those moments remind me why I do this.

I worry. My blog has a Facebook page of its own, but sometimes I cross-post on my personal Facebook page–and then I worry about how it looks to be tooting my own horn. (That’s the humble Lutheran girl inside me, the one my parents raised. They’d be so proud right now.) I worry about whether people I know and care about are reading my blog and rolling their eyes and saying things like “Who does she think she is?” I worry that I’ve written something that suggests something I didn’t actually mean to say. I worry a lot.

I tell the truth. Every situation I mention on this blog is true. Sometimes I tweak the truth just a smidge–I refer to a female friend as “he”, or I refer to a family member as a friend. But I do this only in an effort to avoid hurting someone’s feelings. My point is never to embarrass or insult anybody, but to discuss real situations in an honest way. So I try to balance the truth with a measure of kindness.

I make time for this. Many people ask me “How do you find time to write a blog?” Well, I don’t. I make time to write a blog. There are certain portions of my day and week devoted to doing the things a blog requires–not just writing posts, but doing research for posts, checking my analytics, posting links in blogger support groups, commenting on other blogs and sharing those bloggers’ posts (so they’ll do the same for me), managing my social media channels, looking for photos, editing photos . . . Yeah. Blogging is a lot of work. But I make time for it because it’s important to me and, as my Dad used to say, “You’ll generally find that there’s plenty of time for the things you want to do.”

Starting this blog was something I did to honor my mom’s memory, but it’s turned into something larger than that–it’s become a part of the way I process the world around me and my own experiences. Blogging is something I enjoy, but it’s not something I do for fun. I do it because I think it matters.