Why do I blog?

This is a question I’ve been considering lately. I didn’t even realize I was considering it until I read the question here and here. I’ve had a little burnout and was even {gasp} considering taking my blog down. I've experienced blogger burnout before, but this was serious.

So what is my purpose for blogging? The genesis of my blog was two years ago when I was faced with moving away from my friends and family for the first time and it didn’t look like I’d be moving back anytime soon. At least not in the next ten years. I blogged to stay connected. I thought our parents and grandparents would enjoy the pictures and stories about our lives in Tennessee and that it would help them to feel closer to us. Beyond maybe about six people however, I didn’t expect my readership to grow. I blogged in the third person trying to make it sound like Ben and I were speaking as one from the blog. Then that got tiring and I just started writing in the first person because who was I kidding? Did anyone really think Ben and I were sitting at the computer together planning out what we were going to say? No way, Ben was studying and I was lonely and it felt that by speaking as a unit I was being dishonest. Then, other people started reading my blog. Before I knew it my fourth cousin twice removed on my father’s mother’s side was asking me why my blog hadn’t been updated lately. Friends were telling me which posts they loved. Strangers were stopping by and leaving me sweet comments, telling me they were praying for us and our adventure as a military family. Then my blogging developed a new purpose. Not only was I blogging but I was reading other blogs. I was in the blogosphere to feel connected to not just family, but the outside world. When my husband was busy and there were no friends or family, blogs became my comfort. It was my link to a world outside of medical school.

While immersing myself in blog world, I decided that our blog was going to become an online diary to share with our children. I would print it out each year and save for the kiddies to someday cherish as a glimpse into who we were before them (begin humming “The Way We Were” here). With this I put undue pressure on myself to post every event, every picture, every move, every time one of us sneezed. A little unnecessary. That’s what picture albums are for. I still want my words here for our future children, but maybe not every little mundane thing. That equals burnout for me.

So what does that leave me with? What is my purpose?

I think I would like to share my thoughts and feelings, not just give a play by play on our lives. I want my blog to be something more than just an electronic scrapbook. If I had a chronicle of my parents’ early lives together I wouldn’t want to know just what they did, I would want to know what they felt. What they thought. The most memorable pictures of my parents together were when they were 17 and 18, just married, and driving across country to live in Colorado where my father was stationed in the Army. They took pictures at the different state lines to record the trip. Sure, I know they did that, but what were they thinking and feeling while they did that? When were they happy? When were they sad? Did my mother, only a baby herself, ever cry at night thinking about leaving behind her mother, father, sister and niece? Did my father ever feel overwhelmed with the responsibility of moving his young bride across the country and being faced with providing for a family? When they spoke about the future which was nothing but a blank slate filled with hope and promise, what plans did they lay?

So with that in mind, I’ve decided what I want to record for my children is the deeper part of me. And it doesn’t matter who reads or doesn’t read. I’m going to write for me and I’m going to write for my kids (and in case you're new here, there aren't actually any kids yet, we're talking future children). Now, this is not to say that every post will now become a profound proclamation of who I am as a person. I’m still going to talk about our lives together and what we do and where we go, but I’m going to do it with a different purpose. Maybe that will show through, maybe it won’t. Maybe it will just look like the same old blog to you. But to me it will feel different, and that will inspire me to keep going. Not just to blog with a different purpose, but maybe even to live with a different purpose.

In fact, perhaps I will start living on purpose. And if I do, that may be the best possible outcome for this humble little blog.