You may, or may not, have noticed that I haven’t blogged for a few months. This isn’t because I have no photos or nothing to say, gosh if you know me in real life or follow me on social media you will know that I both always have a camera in my hand and am unintentionally a ‘why say 1 word when you can say 10’ kind of a girl, once I start I just can’t seem to stop…I do try and kerb it though I promise! It is true that summer holidays and September are always a little bit manic and finding time and headspace to write is tricky; but truth be told the latter part of this year has been a difficult one for me confidence wise.
I have questioned my place in this whole online world, what I share, why I share it and that has been a total creative block. Like totally can’t seem to form even a simple sentence kind of block. Which just means that even posts I have already written or travel posts in the making (you know the time we actually did do something interesting in the summer) I haven’t been able to finish or press publish because I just can’t stop thinking about it all every time I put my hands near a keyboard.
I don’t want to dwell on it too much but I had a not very nice comment a few months ago and as much as I hate to admit it, it has really got into my head. I wrote a post about it and thought that would be the end, the cathartic release I needed, that it would clear the air and I would be fine again. Well, it didn’t, and I wasn’t.
Every single time I sat at my computer to write a post there was this little voice in my head judging me. My writing, my photos with a kind of ‘who does she think she is’ mocking voice. Every single time and I couldn’t (can’t) seem to stop it.
This small comment which I am sure the person who said it isn’t thinking about right now managed to dent my confidence in a way that made me feel like every post I wrote could have the potential to make people feel bad, or that others were saying the same and made me super aware that people actually read my posts. Shocking I know!
You see ordinarily for the few years I have been writing I just put pen to paper (so to speak), let my feelings out or wrote about our ordinary life in a way that I would want to read back in the future. Written mostly for me as a diary and in the hope that the children might be remotely interested when they grew up and found themselves in this place of motherhood. The thing is, I never really think about people reading it. Although of course I am very grateful for everyone that does and I always saw that as a positive. That someone would take time out of their lives to be even vaguely interested in what I had to say.
Since this comment though I do see the negative side. Like as I write, press publish, these anonymous people go from being numbers on a report I rarely check to being actually in the room reading it and passing comments or judgement to each other right there so I can hear (you know that scene in BBC’s The Cry where all the comments in her phone become real in the room and it’s deafening? Like that. Albeit a little less dramatic).
I started to see people locally that I know silently stalk my social media every day not knowing I can see them yet wouldn’t talk to me in the street and feeling utterly self conscious. So I’ve retreated into myself considering deleting it altogether because I am not good enough and lets face it I have nothing special to bring to the table. And why would people want to follow you when you have nothing to offer?
You see I don’t think I am anybody. I am really not. I am just someone, a Mum, who decided to write a blog. In fact I am just going to put it out there and say, I am downright ordinary. I know that. I have always been a bit of a plain Jane. Always alright at things, never the worst, never the best, never the most popular, or the least, not the funniest, but a lover of a sarcastic comment and my own jokes, not in the height of fashion but not one to not care either, not a career girl nor a stay at home Mum. Just kind of bobbing along in the middle which isn’t a bad place to be most of the time.
It’s just that right now there is so much pressure to be something. Something different, something extraordinary, go places, do things, be fashionable, be funny, have a niche, be everything. To be AWESOME and SMASH IT, BOSS IT, KILL IT, be the best you can be and show it to the world in their droves who will in turn shout about you. Are you raising awareness? Doing good? Being healthy and fit? Are we all at the school gates but also at the office and DOING ALL OF THE THINGS AND DOING THEM WELL. Striving for the next big thing and keeping up with the world. Literally having it all.
I’m not. I’m not excelling at anything in particular and I have gone through life being alright or just above average at lots of things but never quite there. Friendships is a case in point, I am noones best friend and noones enemy (that I know of!) But I have some great friends. I don’t have a new wardrobe every week, I don’t go away every weekend, or every month, heck some weeks I only leave my house for the school run and to facilitate my childrens social lives which are far above mine and possibly the reason I barely have time for my own anyway. Gosh this year we will have been away three times and that is a big deal. That is as good as it gets for me. I have a mostly happy, if a little ordinary life.
But, and this is a big but, I have let it get me down. Fought to try and be good at something, find my niche, my place. So much pressure that I don’t even know what I enjoy anymore, if any of it. I’m done with that. I’ll never have a niche because I am a complicated mess of a person with a complicated mess of a life and that life isn’t niche. Not in a dramatic way either end, see even my chaos is ordinary.
I have many interests, many layers of my life, some of which make it to the blog and some of which do not. But hey you never know you lucky people you too could soon be reading sarcastic posts, how I still wear clothes from my pre children days (fashion goals right there), mediocre interiors and ones about Nutrition…which I am sure you will all be waiting for. On the edge of your seat! But all of this just muddles up to being me and if there is one thing I am pretty good at, it’s being me. Which I’ve lost a bit lately and need to get it back. To find a way to be unapologetically me.
I am ok being ordinary. Gosh with the amount of dramas I have dealt with in my life ordinary seems pretty darn amazing. Right? Can we just celebrate the ordinary for a moment? Like the feeling of coming home to your own bed when you have been away on an albeit lovely holiday. That moment when you finish work or pick your children up from school and they give you a hug like you’re the only person in the world. That first hot drink of the day. A warm bath, the familiar smell of your favourite perfume. All ordinary and all things that make you feel content and happy.
I am not downplaying big events or great success, I am just saying that feeling content and feeling proud can come from the most ordinary of ordinary moments too and that that is ok. If you dig deep on the most successful of people, or look back on the life behind them, I will bet your bottom dollar that some of the simplest moments are their favourite with the people that they love. Being ordinary is actually pretty ace.
Maybe you are ordinary too, maybe you love it, maybe you strive for more so I’ll continue to write for whoever wants to read and maybe someone will realise, maybe lots of people will realise that being ordinary is pretty darn great. Go big or go home? I’ll go home thank you. I’ll go home with pleasure and be little. Go little and go home, my new ordinary motto and I kind of love it.
On that note I am bringing back my ordinary moments post that I used to write every week, I won’t promise I’ll write every week, I am terrible at my own deadlines but I will bring them back because they are precious and life goes way too fast not to remember the little things and here just a few ordinary moments from the last few months.
p.s there isn’t a competition on how many times I can type ordinary in one post. Promise!!
Laura, I’m so glad you wrote this. So many feeling and thoughts I can relate too, I stopped blogging for almost the same reasons as you (not so much a comment but my own self doubt, I’ve even turned it on private, while I continue to debate). Also the feelings of just kinda being ordinary. There’s nothing wrong with it, and we are our own worst enemies for judging ourselves on it. We don’t have to be smashing it, killing it etc. There’s nothing wrong with being ordinary, I’m sure there’s more ‘ordinary people’ behind the highlight reels anyway. I could go on, you’ve hit the nail on the head for me.
I don’t think you are ordinary. You take beautiful photos and capture your children in the most amazing way. The videos you do for their birthdays and the way you capture feelings through words is a real talent.
But I hear you. If I didn’t have an inherent need to help people then my blog would be totally different and I wouldn’t have anyone reading it at all. Because my life is ordinary too. Today I went to soft play, ran some errands and then the girls had friends over for tea. My highlight was repainting my nails. That is my life right there, being a mum. And that is fine by me. You’ll know I’ve stopped giving two hoots about buying clothes to keep up or just trying to keep up in general, because there is no point. We all have our own paths to lead.
I guess what it boils down to is whether you want to make money. Because as a blog with true heart, you are doing amazingly well – I wish I had just an ounce of your photography talent! But making money and being a business complicates it because then you do have to aim for more. For me, my blog and everything surrounding it propels me to my ultimate goal of writing a book. So I guess you need to think what your ultimate goal is. Either way, don’t you dare stop taking photos as they are just too beautiful not to be shared <3
I’m sorry to hear some of your creative block was a result of a negative comment. It’s too easy for people to hide on line and say something they would never say in person and it’s hard to shake the horrible taste that can leave you with if on the receiving end of it. I can relate to a lot of what you’ve shared about questioning the value of blogging, your voice on-line etc. I’ve not been blogging for a while either having found life tipped upside down by the death of my Mum but in time I hope to return to it as taking photos and sharing stories is my only creative outlet and I’m missing it. The clarity that has come at least is that it doesn’t matter if no one else reads what I write if my purpose is as a creative outlet for me. I’m not looking to earn a living from blogging or become an influencer or any of the other things that might be on a ”10 reasons to start blogging” list.