A Dear John Letter to My Blog (As It Was)

I just can’t blog the way I used to.  Not without a laptop.  Not with a new puppy in the family.  Not with a 2yo who insists on dis-robing every 5 minutes and seems on the brink of wanting to be potty trained.  I have two teen daughters, one who seems constantly in the midst of emotional drama, and one who is so solid I often fear I don’t pay enough attention to her.  I’m needing to guide my preteen daughter through a particularly surly stage, and my 8yo son has so much unfocused energy that he blossoms under something as simple as direct eye contact.  And then there’s the husband – the one who travels 50% of the time, leaving me to hold down the fort, but who wants and needs a wife all the same when he’s home.

I just don’t have the time to blog how I used to, nor frankly, the inclination.

2009 was a year of growth for my blog.  It began in February when I was able to attend the Mom 2.0 Summit in Houston.  This three-day conversation between mom bloggers and marketers gave me the inspiration and confidence to take my blog to a different place.  I experimented with a new blog specifically for product reviews, though I quickly realized that fracturing my online presence didn’t work for me.

I absorbed product reviews back into my personal site, and tried to balance the two.  I started working with more companies, reviewed some products we loved and some products I think back on now and wonder “Why?”.  In the summer, I secured my own hosting and fully integrated my site into treerootandtwig.com.

It’s been a lot of fun, this involvement with companies.  We’ve received some products and been to some events that I never could have paid for with our own money.  And I’ve been proud of my professionalism and commitment, not to mention my output.  My reviews have been – by and large – thorough, and always honest.  I have enjoyed the opportunity to host giveaways and give some lucky individuals the good news that they’ve won.  I’ve met some great PR people who are not just good at what they do, they’re also fun to get to know.

And yet…it’s just not for me anymore.  The pressure, the scrutiny, the skewed priorities.  The acting like it’s a job though I’m not getting paid; making someone else’s business better, but sacraficing time enough to just sit and watch a movie with my kids.  No one “made” me begin to blog that way, so I take full responsibility.  Which is why I’m taking responsibility right now to just turn the clock back a year or so.

For 2010, I just want to blog when I can and about what I want.  If I write a product review, it’ll likely be something I already own, or something I am honestly, genuinely interested in (which does not include pasta or taco seasonings).  I have no goals to own the blogging universe this year, or to be sponsored at all organized conferences.  In fact, if I had to identify my blogging goals for 2010, they would just be to bring things back down to size, avoid obsessing about my statistics, write for me, and connect meaningfully with any readers and with other bloggers I admire.

2009 was a year of growth for my blog, and for me.  And sometimes growth means realizing you were just fine the way you were before.

You might also enjoy these related posts from Tree, Root, and Twig:

1. A Letter from My Blog
2. Your Blog Misses You
3. Quit Harshing My Blog Mellow

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