When I’m asked about the name of my blog and its origin story, I immediately think back to a lousy parenting moment I had with my teenage daughter in the high school parking lot. You can read the whole story here, but in a nutshell, it was then that I truly wished I was handed over a parenting manual in the delivery room along with my baby.
And thus, a blog was born.
But now that my daughter is in college and my son is graduating high school this year, I feel like I need a new origin story or perhaps a reboot. Sure, there are still plenty of opportunities for me to embarrass my kids and feel bad about it, but maybe the focus should be more about my life than theirs.
Here’s the problem. I don’t know what that looks like or where I fit into the blogosphere. I continue to insist that I am way too young for AARP. I resent the fact that once I turned 50 last year, I automatically became a member of their target audience. I considered their invitation for a minute – complete with a membership card, magazine subscription, and all the retirement swag you can imagine. But, once I saw articles like “Putting Your Digital Assets in Your Will,” and “How Pets Influence Older Homeowners Real-Estate Choices,” I politely declined.
AARP must want me to join real bad. They won’t stop trying to win me over. For instance, the editors put Michael J. Fox on the cover of their magazine last month. Talk about a cheap shot! Sorry, but you can’t win me over with 80’s celebrities who were once pinned to my bedroom wall and are now pushing 60. Oy, the humanity!!
(Full disclosure: I still didn’t join, but I did read the article).
Back to my original thought, I hope this blog challenge will help me cultivate two things – a daily writing habit and, potentially, a new focus for my blog that allows me the space to write as my authentic self.
If any fellow writers have been through this kind of transition before, I’d love to hear from you and any advice you may have for me. And if you are just reading this now, what topics would you like to see me write about in the future? I look forward to your comments. I read and respond to them all. 🙂
I learned a long time ago that New Years’ resolutions don’t resonate with me. I make them, and I break them without a second thought. There are a few reasons for this. For starters, resolutions are typically too broad. Lose weight. Get organized. Write more. Volunteer often. Yes, I could drill down each of these statements with smaller steps, an overall plan, and a foreseeable goal. And then, to seal the deal, I would find the perfect app to accompany it.
If you said to me that I would finish reading 30 books this year, I would have said you were insane. I mean – I do have a life, you know, outside of reading. I have kids, a job, a home, a husband, a dog, friends, family, etc. When will I ever find the time to read 30 books?
I looked back to see what exactly I had read. Turns out, I finished 11 non-fiction – mostly memoirs – and 19 novels. I listened to seven books on Audible, read nine on my Kindle, and the rest were actual books from my bookshelf or local library. I DNF’d two books but only counted