Doing this thing for real. Doing it scared
Okay, this is perhaps my second attempt at this. The first time, I told about 6 people I was going to start a blog, and then proceeded to never really post anything. It was nice to be anonymous for a little while, something fun and silly like a little web diary. Well, now this lady wants to get kind of serious. Never too serious because that just isn't me, but serious enough to commit to some form of writing medium. I have plenty of thoughts and opinions, even on topics I probably do not know enough about. But I thought, hey, why not give writing it all down for public consumption a thought. There is one problem, however, and that is the fact that I am extremely nervous about it. I know you are probably thinking, Why?? You used your free will to do this? And you would be correct. I used my free will and my credit card digits to start something that is making me recoil in embarrassment.
Interestingly enough, however, the other day I saw a post about, you guessed it: breastfeeding. Something most of us have technically participated in, but the comments were filled with some extremely profound sentiments. This post dealt with a mother who was struggling to produce enough milk to feed her baby, which is a completely reasonable thing to be upset about. While I could not personally provide good advice, a woman in the comments said something that made me stop and think. In the midst of sharing her personal experience, she said: "Do not sit and measure yourself by what you produce." Now that was one of the most beautiful perspectives I had ever heard...and on a post about breast milk... of all things. My point is, milk or not, I really took that to heart. We do not need to measure our value by what we produce, no matter what that may be. Art, literature, humans, milk, none of it. It does not decide our value or importance to others. While I could probably go into a deep analysis of how this conversation involves the societal expectations of women, I am going to save that can of worms for another time. So with that roundabout way of explaining my thought process, I am doing this because who cares?? This thing is for me and maybe the three whole people who will find it funny or interesting. This going poorly doesn't change my value as a person. I am not going to let my worries stop me from trying something new. So to all the people out there, short, not short, new moms, old moms, you are so much more than what you might be boiling yourself down to. Thanks for reading this far, if you did.
- Napoleon (sort of)