A Self-Imposed Time-Out

Dear Mommy Friends,

This post has sat idle in my head for a few weeks now. Every time I sit down to write it, I stop myself because I’m not feeling witty enough, resolved enough, or candid enough to share the contents of my heart in a way that will be best understood.

It’s a weird thing when you pour your life and the lives of your family into a blog. If you’re lucky, your blog gets read. If you’re really lucky, someone even offers to pay you a little more than a penny for your thoughts and you begin to share more and more. The longer you blog and earn money sharing, you come realize that your stories are becoming less of your own and more of everybody else’s. And why shouldn’t they? You’re getting paid to fulfill a content demand.

I’ve enjoyed the ability to get paid to share my family’s stories. Sometimes the stories were joyous and I couldn’t wait to share them. Sometimes the stories were scary and I was afraid to share them. But no matter the stories I shared, they were always, always personal.

It is because I’ve shared so much of what’s personal for so long that I decided to take a self-imposed time-out and re-examine what I’m sharing and if I even had it in me to continue sharing.

Am I sharing stories that are mine to tell? Am I crossing some invisible line with my children? Can I look myself in the mirror? The answers to these questions haven’t always been clear to me. I don’t know that they’ll ever be.

I toyed with the idea of shutting down this blog, a blog that I’ve devoted so much of my motherhood to creating. I quickly realized doing so wouldn’t be fair to me, or you or the mother who feels better for knowing that my kid acts worse than hers does.

Because I don’t want to say goodbye to this blog, I’m taking a break.

I’m focusing my time and energy as editor for Home, Money, Beauty & Style at GalTime, a place that sits well (so, so well) with my soul right now. I’m learning and growing and changing and trying new and exciting things every single day.

Editor by day, and hopefully soon, back as blogger on Mommyfriend by night.

Writing has always been a personal passion, but after a year spent writing myself into oblivion, I needed to stop talking (or writing) and listen for a while. I needed to stop living my life from behind my computer screen because virtual living, as safe and comfortably isolating as it was at times, left me tapped out of things to say.

I’ll be back soon sharing my stories, not for the stats and not to impress potential advertisers (of which there are none), but because I want to share them.

My house. My blog. My stories. On my time. I only hope to God you’re still here when I return.