Origin story

30 December 2010 08:50 AM Categories: Blogs & bloggers

I started writing to survive on blogspot a little over three years ago, though most of the early entries are gone, too personal to associate with my real name. It was our first winter in northern California, the boy was still sleeping with us full-time (though I didn't mention that), the weather was grey and dreary. We had very little childcare and our son hated going out to playgrounds. Though my marriage was no longer on shaky ground, we had just gotten through a difficult time and were slowly starting to feel like a unit again. I was used to isolation, but this was the worst: trapped inside the house in all kinds of weather, knowing very few people locally, with no idea how I could meet more, a demanding two-year-old plastered to my side (oh, and I was still breastfeeding, too -- cosleeping, extended breastfeeding, attachment parenting, positive discipline, pescetarianism: I'm outing myself and my non-mainstream ways. It's a good thing we ended up in Berkeley, land of crunch). I didn't write much. I didn't read much. When the boy did nap, I cleaned or cooked or reinforced my ideas about parenting by reading the Mothering magazine online forums.

The summer of 2007, right before I started the blog, was a terrible time. I missed DC, the ability to get around easily, my friends, the city, the houses, my old neighborhood with its grocery stores and restaurants and easy access to Rock Creek Park. I missed my mother, even though she was somewhat unavailable at the time. My husband was adjusting to a very different work environment, was struggling with identity questions of his own. I had all this bottled up sadness and anger, a story I had held onto for over twenty years. I had a lot to say, but no way to express it.

That's when I started writing, during my son's naps, writing in a notebook out on the deck, writing in the bathroom after I brushed my teeth, writing out what I used to think of as my defining story (maybe it still is, though I don't want to be defined by it). Then came a marital crisis followed by the creation of the blog, the pursuit of readership and other blogs to read, people to connect with. I started writing more, almost every day, and slowly my life changed (as it must: two-year-olds don't last forever, thank god). Through the Writing Salon, I found a writers' group. My son ended up at a wonderful play-based preschool, then started elementary school. The defining story changed, lost some of its significance. Other kinds of stories surfaced, mostly from my childhood and early adulthood, the days of river swimming and fights over dinner tables, of alcohol and tears.

Long-time readers know my defining story. I used to be obsessed with telling it -- with excoriating the shame. Now it feels more like a significant event in my life, one that I have (almost) overcome, a story that comes in layers, some of them still shot through with pain. It isn't a simple story, with its connections to the other difficult times in my childhood, with my later troubles. If you are curious, read the original story, stripped of the pain. Or just keep reading the blog, because I'm sure it will come up again.

It helps to look back, to see how far I have come, as a writer, as a person, how despite my internal struggles, I am capable of change. We're all capable of change, but sometimes it comes slowly, when we don't even know the wheels are turning.

Thank you for reading, for being witnesses.

Related posts: The end of anonymity, In the beginning . . .

Top image: The boy at almost-three, so cute, so all-encompassing.
Image: Me, sophomore year of high school, at the beginning of the troubles.

Edited on 1/7/11.

Tags: anonymity, blogging, parenting

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