My Shiny Happy Life

I’ve been thinking about starting a blog for a couple years, but like most decisions in my life I have to think about it A LOT before I pull the trigger. So after an extensive amount of thinking about it I finally decided to do it, but first I had to break it down into a list of pros and cons. Pros always come first.

Pros

• It provides the opportunity to write again. Writing has always been a passion of mine, but has taken a backseat to my career and kids for the last decade.
• I have plenty of material. It’s a blessing and a curse that my brain never stops racing. In this case it is a blessing because it’s a bottomless well.
• I have time. I recently left my job to figure out my next move and to spend some much-needed quality time with my kids. So instead of napping when they nap, I can write.
• It provides an outlet to share my thoughts and my story.
• There is an opportunity to connect and resonate with others.
• I can use it to build awareness of some of the issues that I hold close to my heart.
• It could open up doors and help me figure out my next opportunity.
• Reading my thoughts in black and white might help me better understand myself.
• It takes a lot courage to put yourself out there.

Cons

• People might not read it. Because really, do we need another mommy blogger?
• People might not like it. And I might not be strong enough to handle tough criticism.
• It takes a lot of courage to put yourself out there.

Obviously the pros outweigh the cons and one of the ways I am currently trying to improve myself is learning to be more comfortable in my own skin and not worry so much about what others think of me, so this seems like a good exercise. And I figure whatever doesn’t kill you makes you stronger, so bring it on.

My next step was to figure out what topics I would cover, so that it wouldn’t turn into a mess of the miscellaneous thoughts that run through my head each day. These came easily, but aren’t concrete and while I have material on each, I am definitely not an expert on any.

• Being a Mom
  • I recently made a swift transition from working 60+ hours a week to spending almost every moment (awake or asleep) with my children. I still don’t know what to write or say when asked my profession. Homemaker sounds like I make my own curtains and full-time mom is confusing. I was a full-time mom even when I was working, I didn’t stop being a mom the minute I walked into work. I know one thing is for sure. A mom is a mom is a mom.
• Parenting
  • Parenting is separate from Being a Mom because being a mom is a role, a noun, and parenting is a verb. Being a mom includes much more than parenting or in sad cases, much less. And people who aren’t moms can parent. I’m definitely not an expert here. I read books when they were infants to make sure that I didn’t kill them and to ensure they were reaching their milestones. But my parenting approach now includes a combination of instincts, what I learned from my parents, teaching them the traits that I like in adults and in general making sure they aren’t jerks.
• My Weird Spirited Child
  • My five-year-old, Evelyn, is a unique child, an old soul. To be more accurate sometimes I think she is a 45-year-old woman trapped in a five-year-old’s body. Maybe she is not unique, maybe all five-year-olds are this strange. I don’t know. She is the only one I hang out with on a daily basis. I do know that people enjoy her antics and that as soon as her eyes open in the morning, her mouth opens and it doesn’t shut until her eyes shut at night, so there is plenty of material there.
• Fashion/Style
  • This may make me seem shallow or vain, but I truly think it can be a form of art. There is value in finding beautiful things and sometimes we have to lighten up and talk about things like overalls making a comeback. The problem is that while I follow designer brands, I can’t typically afford them, especially now that I am jobless. So I focus on finding deals and styling them in a way that makes it look like it was not thrown in my cart at Target while picking up diapers and dragging my kids away from the dollar bin. My struggle here is that fashion bloggers typically have a lot of confidence and a photographer, so we will see how this goes.
• Living with Mental Illness
  • This might be the hardest to open up about. I’ve been dealing with depression for over 13 years and I was fortunate enough to add anxiety to the mix over the past year (that was sarcasm, you will probably find a lot of that in this blog.) Mental illness is a tricky topic that unfortunately still comes with a stigma. It is a daily struggle that I learn more about each day. I hope that sharing my story will help others who suffer from it to share theirs as well as help those lucky enough to escape it to better understand how they can be a rock for the loved ones in their life who struggle with it.
• Being a Grown Up
  • This is my catch-all. I knew EVERYTHING about being a grown up in my 20s. I checked all of my goals off of my list that I was supposed to: found a career that I enjoyed, married my college sweetheart, got a dog, bought a house in the suburbs and had two beautiful, healthy children—all of which I am very grateful for. So how can I claim to be unhappy in my 30s? There is a part of me that feels guilty for being unhappy, that doesn’t think that I have the right to be unhappy—that thinks I should just shut up and count my blessings. But there is a part of me that wants more and realizes there is more. It was only recently that I discovered that the reason that I am not entirely happy is because I forgot to know and love myself in my 20s, before I did everything else. So now I am doing it backwards, better late than never, I guess.

I am obviously new at this, so I don’t know what will or won’t resonate, but I plan on throwing it all at a wall and seeing what sticks. Because for once in my life I don’t have a detailed plan. I have a goal: to find myself. And you can’t do that without taking risks, digging deep and figuring out what sticks.