[ This post was started on 4/9/2020 – the day before Good Friday. Today is 5/2/2020 – 23 days later. It also began as a completely different topic. ¯\_(ツ)_/¯ ]
Welcome to my mid-pandemic random rambling post. So many things have happened since I last wrote here. SO. MANY. THINGS. With school off for Good Friday – I didn’t feel any pressure to drill sergeant the boys through the evening and into bed on that Thursday night when I started this. So they sat in the music room playing Super Mario Run on their iPad (Sigh. Sorry AAP.) I sat in the family room taking a moment to … sit. And breathe. And jot some things down here.
This started out as a very different post. The original post was a basic life-catch up, mostly to get myself caught up here, praise for my unbelievably incredible mom who has been a lifesaver during this weird time quarantining (as a single working mom of twin 2nd graders still needing to keep up with school), and another attempt to get onto a regular posting schedule here. (Just LOL’d at myself given the 23 day lag between starting it and today. In all fairness, I do (thankfully) have a day job and it happens to be extra busy right now.)
So today when I sat down to work on this post for the fourth time in 23 days, it just went a whole different direction on its own. Go figure.
When I started this website
When I started this website and blog three years ago, I had just quit my nearly 19-year career with GE after staying through one-too-many reorganizations. I had four previous blog-attempts – all pretty journal-y / diary-ish.
But this one was different. I took a blogging course when I learned it could actually be a business. I wanted to document life with the boys – share ups, downs, triumphs, challenges, tips, tricks, crafts, ideas, stories, and … you know. Life.
We are not the traditional family unit. And because I know there are others in a similar situation as me – having not met “Mr. Right” to settle down and have a family the “normal” way (which means absolutely nothing anymore, if it ever did.) Going it alone as a single mom (“by choice”), I knew that having similar stories out in the world helped others (myself included).
It always helps to feel less alone in one’s own journeys knowing there are others on similar paths. Perhaps it could also help destigmatize the whole “single mother by choice” thing that I felt was out there (no idea if it really is, but … perception.)
Why a blog?
In addition to having the boys on my own, add being 42 when they were born, needing donor eggs (obvs in addition to donor sperm), four IVF rounds with lots of heartache in there, and having twins to the mix. There were a lot of people I could connect with this way. Maybe, just maybe, my story would help someone else in a way that I couldn’t find when I was going through the saga of deciding, getting, and having my boys.
No doubt this website was also subconsciously to help ME feel more normal and less self-conscious. Not to mention it was a helpful project distraction to have while I seriously went through the stages of grief after leaving my entire career with no plan (don’t recommend this tactic, btw.)
And since I moved when I was six months pregnant back to my hometown [after living 22 years far away], I was still trying to figure out where I fit in the mom world and how I would find new people in my old/new city. How would I find a tribe?
But a blog?
I majored in English in college, with an emphasis on creative writing. I’ve never made writing an actual habit, but between 2008 and 2011 I started several blogs on blogspot.com. As I said, they were more journal-y. Two were about starting running in my mid-thirties and about training for a marathon. Another one was basically a travel journal summary of a trip to see my cousin, who was living in China at the time. It was really just a way to recap my trip and share pictures with family and friends interested. That one I thought had some potential of becoming essentially a travel blog.
I also started one in 2015 called Brooke and the Boys – on a different blogging platform. I wrote a couple of posts, and then whomp whomp. No more, (In my defense, June 2, 2015 was the last post on that one, and June 9, 2015 is when it all hit the fan at my job – and from then until my last day on March 4, 2016 – I was wrecked.)
Aside: Because the internet is forever, these blogs are still out there. I’m going to pull off the posts and delete the sites but it is cool that they are still there. Time capsules.
What is the point?
The point? No point really. As I said, this post started out a whole different topic. Maybe I am reminding myself why I started this as I try to make my way back to it, and figure out how to make it the business I want it to be.
During this quarantine time, when so many are losing jobs and money and people, I am EXTRA thankful that after a two year freelancing hiatus, I was approached for a position in my area of expertise. I’ve been with my new company for two years now. So the blogging has been a meander, at best.
I’ve taken approximately 548 blogging courses and purchased approximately 6,431 that I haven’t gotten through yet (read: started). I have learned SO much, and I have LOVED all the LEARNING! But I really do want this to be a business (it’s the first of approximately 783 business ideas that I have designed logos for and purchased the domains for.) So it is TIME to do less consuming information and more producing information!
Although no specific point to this random rambling post, maybe it’s just me giving myself a sort of pep-talk. And a reminder to do the things. Finish the book. Tell the stories. Start the business. Create the non-profit. Do ALL the things. Don’t let the dreams fade away. The time is right now.
If you’re reading this, maybe this is a reminder for you too.
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