Own it

I have a friend who says, she can’t walk into a room without telling someone about her blog. I am the exact opposite. In fact I rarely talk about my blog unless I’m with other bloggers or you happen to bring it up. My first rule of blogging has generally been that I don’t talk about blogging.

I’m not sure why. Maybe it’s because when I started my writing felt private and slightly secret even if I was putting it on Facebook. Or maybe it’s that my husband never read my blog or that at one point my parents started reading or that I didn’t want to be judged based on the blog. Which I know is silly, I’m putting my words out there to be read and viewed and scrutinized. And my blog is, you know, public.

But for me blogging was something I did during nap time in the quiet of my kitchen and shared on my Facebook page and smiled when friends like or commented. It was my own little world, that I picked and choose who I let in.

But that all changed this year. I found myself writing for another site and with that came new opportunities, new experiences, new readers, blog conferences and growth. And just like that I was a Blogger, even though I guess I had always been one. Suddenly people were asking me about blogging and even my husband started reading. And then I realized that instead of muttering under my breath, “Thanks I’m glad you like the blog”, taking a large sip of my cocktail and changing the subject, that I needed to own it. I need to own this space. I need to own this work that I do. To validate it and to realize that there is value in it and the time I spend doing it.

And that is hard for me. It’s taken a lot of large sips for me to get here. But I love this space, I love my writing, I love my audience and I love sharing my life here. And I’m proud of this space. Of where it’s taken me and where it’s going.

So for 2014 my word(s) is “own it”, all of it. This space, my life and myself. It’s not always pretty or perfect, sometimes is messy and magical, and other days it’s utter chaos. But it’s me. This space and this life. And I’m tired of apologizing for who I am. For feeling sorry for saying or writing something. For hiding behind the blog. I want to talk about what I do on a day to day basis in the same way that my friends who work outside of home do.

My goal is to get back to writing the kinds of posts that I started this blog with and to still continue to share other things that interest me. I’m finding that with a 4 year old my life is not as consumed with all things “mommy” as it used to be and that I have time for things that interested me before I became a Mom. There will be more fashion, more food and of course more motherhood.

What are your goals for 2015? Did you make a resolution or pick a word for the year?