Blog Confusion

For some time now, I've been feeling really confused about this blog.  Until a few months ago, the purpose of the blog was really clear to me.  We started it out of necessity when Samuel was four days old.  We spent every spare minute of his first few days emailing the many people who care about our family, and it was exhausting writing essentially the same email over and over and over.  And we worried about who we'd forgotten, who might be hurt they were out of loop, etc.  It wasn't time we had or the things we needed to be focused on.  So when Samuel was four days old, we decided a blog was the solution; we could keep people informed about Samuel, his prognosis, and how we were holding up, and we could be free the rest of the time to focus on our son.

Once Samuel died, my perspective on the blog shifted.  It became a place for me to process my grief.  It was basically a journal, and the fact that other people might read it was completely incidental.  It was healing for me to write, and I wanted a record of my grief.  I did it for me -- because it was good for me.

The blog has always been about Samuel in some way -- his struggle for life, our struggle with life once he died, our longing for another child, and how Anna's entrance into our family surfaced grief, made us lonesome for Samuel, and was a tremendous part of our healing.  This blog has really been Samuel-centered, and that's the way I wanted it.

But as time has gone on, as grief has become a gentle presence in our lives instead of a dominant force, as Anna has become an integral part of our family and less and less a a stirrer of our grief, I have become really confused about what this blog is and should be.   Having a blog, two and half years later, devoted purely to our grief feels a little...self-indulgent?  affected?  I don't know -- something that doesn't sit well with me.  At least not if I want to post with any degree of regularity.

As much as I love writing and find it to be good for my soul, it's hard to imagine just jumping ship and abandoning the blog all together.  But I'm having a hard time figuring out what it becomes.  I've been struggling with it for months now.  Should it be an online journal of our family that I keep for my sake and the sake of our kids?  Should it be somewhere where I write about what God is teaching me and how I'm growing?  About parenting -- something I'm incredibly passionate about?  A mixture of all of it -- grief, family, and faith?  I don't know.

I guess the other element that has me all discombobulated is the whole audience thing.  It's been so clear to me since September 2009 that I wasn't writing this for an audience (and in August 2009 I was writing it for prayer support).  If people happened to read it, then fine.  But I wasn't writing for them.   I didn't announce my blog or try to share it.  I didn't try to gain readers (ewww -- the idea is totally unsettling to me).  But that's not really what most blogs are for.  People blog for an audience, to be read.  And I'm uncomfortable with that for me -- at least at this juncture.  (To be fair I must admit that it's a double blessing when someone is encouraged or challenged by what I write -- to know it helped me and someone else is always truly gratifying.  But I have never made that my focus.)  I don't want to do this for accolades or encouragement or to boost my pride.  Something in me is revolted by the very idea of that.  Really, if I'm totally honest, I have something against trying to garner up a group of people to read what I write -- advertising myself or ideas or claiming to have wisdom others should listen to.  It feels like self-promotion, and I am simply uncomfortable with it in every way.  I have friends who blog for an audience, and they do it beautifully, naturally, and humbly.  But I also know people who don't.  And I am afraid of joining their ranks.  I know I don't ever want to sit down to write and think "if no one reads this or comments on it, then it's a waste of time" because that's not true for me.  The value of writing for me is that it helps me process, it helps me see more clearly, it draws my heart to Jesus.  And I don't want to be waylaid and lose sight of that.  So, I'm confused.  Where do I go from here?

I'm not sure how to resolve my confusion.  Maybe at its essence that's what confusion is because if you knew your way out of it, you wouldn't be confused anymore.  I've talked to Bryan about it.  I've talked to my mom.  They can both envision a future for this blog pretty easily, but I can't yet.  I realize I don't have to know exactly what "it" is to keep writing.  That's what I've been doing since December -- writing anyway despite my lack of clarity.  But I would like to have a framework from which I approach the blog -- something that guides and directs what I include and what I don't.  Something that gives it cohesion.

All I know to do for now is write when I feel like I need or want to do so, but my entries might be all over the place.  And they might be sparse.  I just don't know yet.  I am praying for wisdom.  I want to be a light for Jesus, and if writing can be part of that, then by all I means I want to do it.  I also want a record for my kids of their childhood, of our love for them, of our hunger to show them Jesus.  And I continue to want a record of my grief.  So how this blog may or may not blend all those things, I guess I'll have to wait and see.  And in the meantime, I'll keep asking for that wisdom!