Why I blog

Tagged by the lovely Kisses...

Ask me on any different day and you'll get a different answer. Truly. The reasons are so multifactorial.

I have written a diary/journal in some form or other since I was about 9 years old. Originally containing such incredible stuff as "I think Bradley likes me, but I like Anthony more - what do I dooooooo???" it was and still remains a way to write out my thoughts and examine them. When I hit highschool, we had a teacher that liked us to write a journal that we felt comfortable handing in to be read. So you could write as little or as much as you liked. And I surprised myself by actually opening up a bit in mine. Still mostly childish stuff, but things that I would have previously kept to myself.

After she stopped being my English teacher, I continued writing the more opened up raw stuff. I took my journals everywhere, kept them in my blazer pocket and whenever I felt emotionally raw I would pour that out in words. I've read back on some of it and it's pure unadulterated crap, but it's value to me then was immeasurable.

The odd thing is that when I was really depressed I stopped writing. Words were just too painful, and so I moved more into art. It was easier to draw how I was feeling than examine my non existent emotions. Easier to draw blades over my skin that to put that turbulence into historical record.

And I didn't really write a diary again until the day that I found out I was pregnant with the Monkey. I'd wanted to, but hadn't actually had an impoetus. And then I peed on that stick and saw those two lines and freaked out. Hyperventilated and shook and did all those things you're not supposed to do when you receive your "happy news". And I opened up a diary on a parenting website and originally typed up an entry about just how out of control I was feeling - before hitting backspace until a giant blank box was sitting there, cursor flickering.

And I thought about the fact that I was going to keep this bundle of cells that would become a baby, and I thought about the fact that if I was going to do that would need to come to terms with it, and instead wrote something pretty innocuous.

Well

Apparently we are not so clever after all.

After having a big chat at the end of last year about postponing our baby plans until I graduate we seem to have thrown a spanner in the works.

I found out today that I am pregnant again with baby #2. This was no slight faint positive on concentrated morning urine at 6 weeks like the last pregnancy - this was a bright pink line that almost fluoresced in the sunlight.

I had bought the test in the first place as a reassurance that my periods were just out of whack again. Didn't quite work out that way. And my response was not very Hollywood either. I cried. Then made DH come home from work to make it better. He arrived shortly after with a bunch of red roses and a huge smile on his face. He is so happy. And slowly I'm getting there too. And am already feeling very guilty about my less than enthusiastic response.

It's going to be pretty difficult with uni to try and work out deferment etc but at the moment I don't care. I am having a baby! To go with my perfect little girl. We are a real family!

Still feels surreal - like I'm making it up. Off to the Dr tomorrow to get a quantitative hCG and a referral for my OB. It feels very odd typing that. I'm sure it will become real eventually.

I bought the little Blueberry a toy this afternoon. A stuffed Gund Puppy Dog. And as i stroke its plush fur this is starting to sink in. I'm going to be a Mummy again.

And then I didn't type anything again for 6 weeks or so. But after that break the flodgates opened. I wrote about my ambivalence and my fear and parenting in general, but mostly I didn't write about my inner me. I don't think Phil ever got a mention. It felt wrong to record pregancy details and the girls milestones in amongst the absolute crud that permeates my brain. So after 18 months or so of parenting diaries, I opened this blog. And for a while it felt like I was two timing my EB diary. I had a loyal band of around 40 readers over there, and although *this* blog is opened up to the real world, it was relatively anonymous as well, and I'd come to like having feedback on my posts. But then I'd never let people into my head.

But little by little this offered more. My brain is so full sometimes, it races and is filled with so many thoughts and confusing contradictions that I needed somewhere to blah about it so that I couls try and sort it out. And that's what this is for me. A pensieve maybe. A way to take the things that hurt my head, those things that I know aren't normal in my head, and to rearrange them so that they make sense. And hopefully become a more enlightened and more empathetic person when it's done.

And sometimes I don't blog it here, because it's too raw, or because I can see the direction it's going, and I'm not sure that I really want to examine that part of myself (see Friday). The problem with not doing it is that if I haven't managed to sort it out, then I can end up doing stupid things, or saying hurtful things to people I love. And lose any respect and credibility I've had as being a decent and empathetic person.

It's a bit of a codependent relationship really...

Tags to
Shannon, Melissa and Candi