It's been quiet around here, which is both a good thing and a bad thing. It's good, because it means I'm busy living life, but it's also bad, because writing is so very good for me and it means that life is too busy to find time for writing. I've learned in the past few years, especially since I became a mom, that I need to write, because it's something that is as much a part of me as breathing. It's the way I communicate and process life best.
Someone asked me the other day how in the world I have time for writing in the middle of raising three little ones. My answer? I make time for writing, because I need to write. Sometimes it means taking a step back away from social media so I can free myself from the noise and distractions that give me the biggest writer's block. Other times it means carrying around a notebook and writing on the back steps while the kids are playing in the backyard. It's different every time, but it's always good for my soul when I make the time to write.
I always find it strange and awkward to tell someone in real life that I'm a writer. I don't have my name plastered on a book or a best selling novel on the New York Times best seller's list. I am simply a momma who loves to write and spills words on a computer screen for whoever wants to read them. I'm not even a well known blogger and sometimes it feels strange to even call myself a blogger.
How do you explain to someone who has rarely even read a blog before what it means to expose your heart in words on a screen or how some of my sweetest friendships have been formed through the internet? There was a time when I scoffed at even the thought of using instant messenger and the first time I heard about facebook I laughed. Now? Facebook has become as much a part of my vocabulary and every day as blogging.
I get teased a lot by family and friends in real life that I spend way too much time on the computer and sometimes it bugs me more than I wish it did. I am so hard on myself to begin with, so sometimes the teasing just adds to my feelings of failure. Other times I wonder how to explain the blessing the internet has been for me as a stay at home mom of three little ones who craves community as much as alone time.
I am a very outgoing person, but there are times as a mom that I wonder if I'm not as outgoing as I once thought. The exhausting day in and day out of mothering often leave me parched for community but too tired to seek it. I want to call up a friend and meet up at the park, but I'm too tired to take a shower, get dressed, and wrestle all three kids in the van. So, I hole up at home day after day and the more I remain in the safe cocoon of my home the harder it becomes to seek out and grow real life friendships.
Social media has become a life line for me. On the days when simply getting out of bed is enough achievement, I find comfort and community in the women who meet me here, right where I am. I post a facebook status and remember I'm not alone through the comments, messages, and wall posts of women who understand and get exactly where I am. I read a blog post or send an email and find women who know exactly what it's like to be craving community at the same time you crave time alone.
Sometimes coming here or to my facebook page is all the energy I can muster and it's easier to find community online than in real life. I have found some beautiful friends here, but I can't forget the real life community God has placed right here in my everyday life. I just don't always know how to find them again after time spent curled up on my couch and behind a screen. I know my limits and sometimes my limits make it a lot harder to connect with people in real life. I'm not the mom who can run here and there and everywhere on limited amounts of sleep. I don't function well on little sleep and I function even less on busy. So I sit here, stuck in between the online and in the flesh connections, wondering where exactly I fit.
* I've been pondering Lisa-Jo's Five Minute Friday prompt from last week, but I couldn't quite find the words to explain something that's been on my heart lately until today. Too often, I find that five minutes isn't enough time for me to really spill my heart in words. I need to sit and ponder, wait and wonder, until the words finally come.
I've missed you! My Reader is overflowing and it's time for some serious purging. I only have a handful of IRL friends and family who even read my blog. My husband doesn't read it, although I'll read it aloud to him from time to time. No one really understands how my heart breathes to write, to record, to testify of all that God is doing in my life. I am thankful that you write. I think there is a place for us in both worlds, the real and on line, especially if you feel that God has called you to encourage others. Keep writing. I'm always blessed.
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