4 Reasons Why I Blog

I noticed I don’t really have many helpful posts on this blog which are things most people search for or are drawn to; me included! I love writing about my personal experiences and expressing myself but also I want to be able to  help people. One of my goals this year was to build a space for myself where I could open and freely talk about Postpartum Depression and I created a blog specifically for that. Maybe some day I’ll feel comfortable enough to share it across all my other media’s but for now, I’m still paranoid my in laws are stalking my stuff so… there’s that.

I’ve been blogging since 1999. I started on Opendiary then TeenOpenDiary (which is still one of my favorite platforms looking back) then moving on to LiveJournal, Xanga and DeadJournal. I also dabbled in the random LiveJournal-like blog platforms like Blurty (which I’m so sad shut down before I could download my entries) and the like. Then settled into BlogSpot for awhile. I also blogged on Vox which was a great platform and of course both WordPress.com and WordPress.org.

Originally I started a blog because I was tired of my mom reading my diary.

When I was around 6 my dad bought me one of those kid diaries where it came with a literal lock. My mom hated that. She was a bit controlling and extremely nosey when I was a kid and felt like she was entitled to read my diary since I lived in her house. And that’s something I constantly struggled with growing up. There were times the things I’d write in my diary got me in trouble. One particular one was where my brother had done something and I took the blame when it wasn’t my fault and how he gets away with everything. I was maybe 8 or 9 when I wrote that. And as I got older it got worse but in that specific time frame I got in so much trouble for just saying he gets away with everything.

My mom wasn’t at all computer savvy when it was introduced into our household. I remember the first thing I did (after making my AOL screen name of course) was find a blog site to start a blog.

I tried hiding my journals in various places. I’ve always had this extreme NEED to write, ever since I was little. It’s ALWAYS been my therapy, literally my entire life. And it still is.

Therapeutic Outcomes

As a teenager back when you didn’t need images or anything to have a successful blog; I use to vent my heart out in my blog posts. Often talking about the same thing over and over. I would (and still do) almost use writing to map out what happened, add in my feelings towards the different points, pick it apart and try to figure it out until I understood it or found a way to move away from the problem.

It helped me through so much; my therapists always comment on how I’m super self aware of myself. Thanks, it’s cause I blog. I know my weaknesses, my toxic traits, I know why I do and react to the things I do. I can tell you which trigger is connected to which traumatic point in my life. And it’s something that has both helped me and not helped me when it comes to self improvement. I’m aware there’s a lot I need to work on and I’m absolutely not ashamed to admit that.

I love photography

I’m not good at it, at all. At least I don’t think I am. But I’ve always loved taking pictures of things. As a kid losing my memory was one of my biggest fears (then I got older, slipped into dark time and tried everything I could to erase entire days from my memory) so I would take pictures of EVERYTHING. I’ve always been like this and it’s bothered some of my exes and some of my friends.

But I prefer to document things happening in my life. Not to show off but honestly mostly as an archive for myself. Today’s blogging it’s encouraged to post photos in your blog posts and I love finding products and things to match what my blog post is about. I love looking at pretty product shots on other blogs so of course I’m gonna wanna join in! And it gives me something to photograph!

I enjoy reviewing things

I have a pretty small circle of friends which is fine. They’ve been my friends for 10-20+ years and are people I absolutely know I can depend on. But they can only hear so much about the things I like lol. And some of them don’t read books or play video games. When I started reading heavy around the time my ex husband left for the AirForce I had so many thoughts about what I was reading and he wasn’t there to tell them to so I started a blog with my sister in law since we both read the same stuff. I eventually got really into reviewing books and fell into the bookish blog/youtube community (this was back in 2009).

I also would review makeup, mostly from ELF before they got as big as they are now. But I enjoyed talking about things I loved or things I hated. And it was another thing that was fun to archive about myself/my life.

My love for reviewing landed me lots of collabs with big six publishers like Scholastic, HarperTeen, PenguinTeen and Sourcebooks. I also collabed with ELF, Minted and Audible when they first came out! I also found myself in the Amazon Vine program as well as the Yelp Elite squad.

It’s definitely taken me places and provided opportunities I never thought would be for me. I don’t make a ton of money off blogging; blogging and monetization are two completely different things. I’m just now looking into it more seriously along with driving traffic with Pinterest. I want to be able to show Tums that no matter what your goals/dreams are YOU ARE CAPABLE of achieving them even if you don’t know how. Earning income through blogging is still a new concept that takes a lot of self disciple and pushing yourself.

Blogging and writing will always be the first love of my life; it’s helped me cope with so much. It’s helped me understand things I wouldn’t had understood about myself and my life otherwise. And I will always truly be thankful for the things writing and blogging have brought me.

Blogging and social media is my life, and I’m absolutely in love with that idea. Possibly more now than I was in 1999 signing up for that very first blog of mine.

Why do you blog? What is something you’re super thankful for that blogging has brought to you?