I couldn't care less. Well, that's not 100% true. I like it when my sisters and mom blog because I'm interested in reading about what they're doing and seeing all their pictures.
But I don't care if you blog or not, and I don't care if nobody (excepting my mother) gives a fig about what I'm writing about. I write for me.
Aside from my family of course, my blog is my number one prized possession.
It used to be said if your house is burning what do you grab? Your photo albums, right?
That's out of date, though, now that everything is digital or online.
My hard drive recently failed. (ok..not so much failed as got knocked on the floor by rioting kids).
EVERYTHING was on it. Every picture I've ever taken of my kids. I was devastated.
It was unclear if we'd be able to recover any or all of the data.
Quincey was mad at me and lectured me about backups and such which reminded me of the time my sister and I were both excitedly opening a taped up box. When I was unsuccessful with my fingernail she came at it with a knife slicing my fingers open. I was bleeding and screaming while my mother lectured me on safety.
Excuse me, Mom/Quincey?? I'm hurting here!!
Of course, I totally understand that reaction now that I'm a mom. When the kids get hurt I immediately react with anger. And for the record, so you don't think less of them - my mother did indeed take care of me, and Quincey paid over a thousand dollars to fix the hard drive (though it was in the shop for months. Two agonizingly long months. Possibly longer, I lost track.)
I love my blog because at any point I can look back and see what we were up to a year, two, three ago. Not what we generally looked like, or the vacation we took (although I have those too), but I can read a little story about a regular old nothing day and what happened. I can see what silly thing they said that day, how they made me laugh or cry. How frustrated or deliriously happy I was at any given time.
Is that necessary? Nope. But I consider it a gift I give myself, and I hope someday that my kids will consider it a gift I give them.
I heard a story today about a woman with cancer who was also a blogger. She blogged right through her treatment and everything. Then suddenly she stopped posting, and a few days later her sister came on and posted that she had passed away. The blog was printed out and passed out to everyone who attended her funeral. What an amazing thing to have.
We have a handful - literally - of pictures of our grandparents and great grandparents and beyond. We know so little about them. How much could we learn from reading about my grandmother and the things she went through as a young mother? How much could I learn from that? How much comfort could I have in knowing that she had the same experiences?
My grandmother is in the advanced stages of Alzheimer's. Those memories are gone. They don't exist anymore except for a few stories I remember her telling me and those that she told others.
I've always been a journal writer. I have journals that date back to 5 years old right through the teen and young adult years.
I guess I've always really believed in the importance of record keeping and more importantly the catharsis of thinking/writing through things. I always feel better about something if I've sorted through it enough to be able to write about it coherently.
I guess blogging is my therapy. :-)
It's also my modern day photo albums.
My children's baby books.
My journal.
It's all my memories.
It's the story of my life.
It's the story of my kid's lives while they're too little to do it themselves.
Call it trendy. Call it foolish. Call it narcissistic.
It doesn't bother me.
I smile every time I read back through old entries, and I can't imagine stopping anytime soon.
You don't blog? I don't care. But I think you're missing out, and I just wanted to share.
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