Why I'm Not a Mommy Blogger

Spellbound by Elle Moss

I've been blogging more frequently this month than in the past 6 months. Taking a break from my studies and immersing in motherhood full time is actually quite nice and I'm afraid I'm getting too comfortable with having less on my plate.

I'm not saying being a SAHM is easy. It is far from easy. I came really close to flipping over the laundry basket earlier after doing 3 loads that included two bathroom floor mats that were obviously resistant to the dryer. That fucker just won't dry and it kept coming out damp even after 2 cycles! When I realized I was cursing at an inanimate object and taking my domestic frustrations out on a laundry basket, I had to take a deep breath and regather myself.

This is my job. This is my job. This is a part of my job...

As much as I hate acknowledging this sometimes, I know deep inside that it's true, at least for now.  Laundry, dishes and cleaning are a part of my job as a SAHM and as depressing as this sounds, I have to come to terms with it, at least for the time being.

WOMEN BLOGGERS & WRITERS

What's good about staying home without other job related responsibilities is that I finally have time to write and read other blogs. I spent most of the day reading blogs and fell in love with this 37 year old editor/writer who is an amazing storyteller & writer. And astoundingly her blog archive go back nearly ten years! 10 freaking years! She's totally funny, totally cool, totally talented and I can really relate to her especially her addictive personality- her past affairs with alcohol, cigarettes and bad ex-boyfriends- as well as her love for classic literature and writing.

It seems that good writers or at least the ones I like, have close encounters with alcohol, drugs and depression. This includes writers like Woolf, Plath and Jean Rhys whose writings I fall in love with over and over again. Coincidentally the first two committed suicide in horrific ways (it involves a gas stove, cookies, pocket full of rocks and the ocean) and the last struggled with depression and alcoholism her whole life. In essence, madness and artistic creativity seem to be closely related and I even dedicated three months of my life reading about it.

Either way I'm not ashamed to admit that I used to self-indulge without guilt at one point of my life. I used to have a life before becoming a mom, you know.

It was short lived, but I don't regret a single day of it especially after coming across this fascinating heroine-chic ex-beauty editor from NYC who binges on all kinds of drugs and comes up with some brilliant pieces during her highs. I don't admire drug addicts but I do have this weird fascination for madness and writing. Sure she needs rehab and perhaps a sober boyfriend who can help with her daddy issues but her writing is raw, mad and painfully disturbing. It reminds me of a modern day noir writing: dark, bleak, lonely yet beautiful in its darkness.

Then I came across this blog by a female escort. I had never read stories like hers and while it lucidly revealed another side of the escort world, I couldn't help but to grimace at her stories about having threesomes with married men and letting them smear chocolate syrup all over her body and face for money. Maybe I felt uncomfortable to acknowledge female prostitutes as real women with genuine feelings even as she seemed to carry them with a certain air of grace and clarity. I don't know, maybe I'm old-fashioned in this way. As fascinated as I am about deviance and dark realities of beauty and love, I just couldn't get myself to keep reading her stories of immorality and paid sex.

Lastly I came across blogs (or a group of blogs) by these mormon ladies who portray motherhood and family life in a way that's just too perfect that it seems, for lack of better word, disastrous. One blogger writes,

I would honestly change 20 diapers a day and get up in the night every 1-3 hours for the rest of my life if that meant I could always have a newborn in arms reach.

Is she serious? She would change 20 diapers a day and get up in the night every 1-3 hours for the REST OF HER LIFE? Is that humanly possible? We, humans, need sleep!

It's women like this that make me feel less adequate as a mother, woman and human being. Don't get me wrong, I do miss the newborn stage. I miss the smell, the soft skin, the sweet cooing and cuddly warmth of infants but I also know how difficult the first few months are physically, mentally and hormonally.

Mommy bloggers like her make other struggling moms look like whiny brats and make naive husbands make comments like "_________ seems to handle it just fine, what's wrong with you?"

Disastrous, I tell you.

Despite the fact that her children are absolutely adorable and her pictures are drop dead gorgeous, I just couldn't relate to her world of perfect birthday parties, perfect fathers, perfect mother-in-laws and perfect husbands.

Such demand for perfection is what made my life spiral out of control during teen/adolescent years and I'm never going back to that lonely, overworked and underappreciated world where perfection is the only way to accept myself.

Perfection is an illusion.

My life isn't perfect. I'm not perfect and neither are my children. But I'm okay with that and I still love myself and my life.  And I doubt her life is perfect, she just finds solace in portraying her life that way to her in-laws and online blogging friends for some weird form of sick, twisted self-gratification.

Or maybe I'm just insecure and jealous that my mommy life isn't as perfect as hers. And I guess this means her and her mommy friends won't be my blogging buddies either...

WRITING WITHOUT AN IDENTITY 

So after spending hours in front of my laptop exploring this world of bloggers and niche writers for the first time, I felt lost and confused like a puppy in a strange city. I belong nowhere.

What exactly do I write about? What exactly is my blog about? What is my blogger identity?

I'm not a successful editor, a drug addict, a female escort nor an incredibly talented mother who adores every part of her family life. Well, I do love my family- but my life is far from perfect.

I'm lost...why can't a person just write? Isn't a writer defined by the writing, not the other way around? Today's blogging culture seems counterintuitive to me.

I belong nowhere.

Since I can't answer these questions at this moment, I guess I'll just follow the footsteps of Robert Frost and take the road less traveled- that is, this unknown blogsphere territory without a sense of destination or direction.

As I have learned over the years, writing takes on its own life once it's materialized onto the page from the writer's mind.

So I guess it really doesn't matter as long as I keep writing. I guess I just have to let my words steer my ways and let them decide which way to go.