Who I've Become After Eight Years of Blogging

I started my blog eight years ago today. With a post titled, "It's About Time," I took my first tentative step into writing publicly online. Well, semi-publicly, as I used a pseudonym back in the beginning. That's what all the "cool" bloggers did back then, or at least the ones I thought were cool. The ones I hoped I could be just a tiny bit like some day.

Most of them don't post anymore, and yet I'm still here.

Hannah and me, April 2007

What I didn't say in that first post, when I described myself as a 29yo married mom of a 3yo, living in the Boston suburbs, working full-time and about to finish my MBA, was that I was only a few months separated from the crushing experience of having a miscarriage. I read countless online accounts of miscarriages in those days, and they were harder to find then, but they were there. I needed to know that I'd be okay again, some day, and so I took strength from these women writing and telling their stories. I decided to contribute my own.

I think back to the person I was then, and it seems almost a lifetime away, despite it being less than a decade. I got pregnant a couple months later, and that pregnancy became Max. In 2007, Hannah was a relentless chatterbox who refused to wear anything but dresses. I'd just started with the group I'm still in at work, but had no idea that a career path like the one I've had was even possible. My degree that only had a few months left had taken me four and a half years to complete. Marc and I were in the middle of our kitchen remodel, and now we're about to start working on the rest of the plans we've had since back then.

While I'm still busy, it's a very different busy now than it was eight years ago. Things were so much harder then than they are now. Life with a preschooler and an infant, daycare centers in opposite directions on different schedules (plus the cost of two kids in full-time care), both Marc and I working hard to establish our careers, updating a 90 year old house, having only one truly reliable car. A solid year of back troubles, culminating in surgery. Managing diabetes through all of it, and eventually getting a Type 1 diagnosis. So much of the busy back then was beyond our control. There wasn't time for things like non-profit boards and producing shows and monthly networking groups. Back then, I was lucky to write one blog post a month.

Despite how hard it was, I always tried to see the good in all I was doing, and that's how I evolved to have a "having it all" focus. I was so tired of being told that I couldn't have it all, that I needed to opt out, that all you can hope for is a compromise. I was doing it, I was having it all, and I still believe that I am. I know there is a tremendous amount of privilege in that statement, but I also know that a lot of hard work has gone into it too.

Now? I have a lot more confidence than I did then. My kids are thriving, Marc and I are happy, I'm enjoying my work and find more and more pockets of time to do things I like. I've even been paid for writing things of my own invention and direction. I'm still learning and growing, but always grateful that I have this space to come back to, to help me process it all.

My blog predates my being on Facebook or Twitter. I still don't have ads or work with sponsors. It's just me, writing out into the abyss, hoping someone will read and find some connection in my story. After 480 posts and nearly 200,000 page views, I still can't promise that posts will actually revolve around a theme, or that they'll fit neatly into labels. But I'm glad you've chosen to read along, and hope that at least you've found it worthy of your time.

That's all I wanted then, and it's still all I want now.