200th Post

I just noticed that my last post was my 200th (for this blog alone). That's a whole lotta dribble if you ask me.

Sometimes people ask me why I blog. Where do I get the time? Am I an aspiring writer? Am I at all concerned about my family's privacy? What's the fascination with documenting silly details, occurrences, observations? Do I really think anyone else cares about my life's minutia?

I can't say with any real certainty how much or how little people care about my world. But I can say with absolute conviction that blogging has become a habit. I, like many others, have found that writing allows me to clear the hard drive, so to speak. If I put words to thoughts, I feel like my tightly packed noggin becomes a little less cluttered.

The blog started entirely as a way to journal my life as a mother and to chronicle the goings-on of my children. What a gift it will be to one day bestow them with their mother's narrative. How I wish that my mother and grandmothers had done it for me. After all, so much is forgotten as time passes. And I believe that adult children can benefit from understanding their parents' past elations, motivations, challenges, convictions, and yes, disappointments. My hope is that my story will give some context to their childhood memories and insight into my (and my husband's) parental choices.

Admittedly, I have other, less lofty reasons for keeping a blog. I like the relationships I have fostered with other bloggers. We learn from each other by engaging in a level of discourse that is generally supportive, often creative, and almost always engaging. Motherhood is often a confining and lonely endeavor, no matter how many children surround us. Face-to-face friendships are important but lets face it...it's tough to coordinate schedules to carve out that quality time together. I don't mean squeezing in a few sentences with friends during a play date or over a soccer game. There is plenty of that. I'm talking about taking the time to sit down with someone and have a distraction free, relaxed conversation. Not easy to come by, that is for sure. In the blogosphere, however, you blog when you can, read other blogs from all over the world, and comment on posts that strike a chord. When you feel like it. On your schedule.

And I love to write. I have ever since I was a teenager. The arrangement of words is endlessly fascinating to me. Even the most prosaic discourse can have a certain elegance to it. Does the sentence overstate the case? Is that metaphor overly trite? Does my purposeful misuse of grammar appear as such or does it just seem like I failed sixth grade English? Have I aptly conveyed what I was really thinking or did I somehow miss the mark? Do I really need that "Dom Perignon " caliber word when the "Two-Buck-Chuck" suffices nicely?

While my posts do not often meet a literary standard, there are many which make me happy and a handful that even elicit a bit of pride. Some were written in a matter of minutes and others took hours. It is true that I easily lose track of time when composing a new post or editing an old one. And when I'm not writing, my thoughts often wander to old posts. I frequently think of words or phrases that better depict my intent or convey my point with greater subtlety. I just love the way a single comma can completely change an idea's meaning. How the artful choice of words can create a sentence that perfectly reflects the complexity of a thought. Or how uninspired composition makes the very same sentence appear pretentious and contrived.

I would really feel like something was askew if I suddenly stopped blogging. Ultimately, I find great comfort in capturing life's moments in words. And by sharing convictions with those who express an interest (or with the poor sap who unwittingly stumbles upon my site). On some days, only a few die hards check in and on others, I receive hundreds of hits. Either way, I will be blogging into the foreseeable future.

Let's see how the next two hundred posts unfold. God willing.