Cluff Central: Blogging Performance Anxiety

Many of you probably know that I used to blog back before Marty and I got married (and once after), as Slightly Awkward Shelly. In one of my first posts on that blog, I needed something to help me illustrate an idea, so I drew a diagram in MS Paint, and it was a hit. Then I started to add some stick figure drawings and everyone loved them. It was a really fun project for me for a long time, but as my friends started to get more and more excited for each new blog post, the pressure to have each post live up to the last started to cripple me. You would be surprised at how long it takes to draw such poor quality stick figures. The combination of both the effort required for each post, and the pressure to perform, made it a relief to quietly "retire" when I got married. I had loved blogging, but was ready to be done.

Taking those lessons with me as I was deciding what kind of blog I would have this time, I knew that I would be susceptible to Blogging Performance Anxiety (or BPA). I also knew that as nice as it was to have people love my stick figure drawings, what I really loved was sharing my voice, and with this 24/7 gig I have going on with the babies, I needed to be able to get my voice out there without a prerequisite of something really time consuming like the drawings. I offer my heartfelt apologies to the stick figure lovers out there, I wish I could be what you needed me to be.

Well folks, yesterday was officially my first case of BPA on this blog. A measly three people had told me that they loved reading my thoughts, so as I sat down at my keyboard after an especially long day, I longed to produce something profound and wonderful for my "fans". Yet felt completely void of inspiration.

Mind you, at this point I hadn't realized that it was BPA that had set in. I thought I was tired from the long day, and Marty was ready to go to bed so I felt rushed, and it's hard to be profound when you feel rushed. I finally squeezed out a post that I still don't really like, about five minutes after Marty's patience for going to bed had run out (we still do that cute newlywed thing where we [try to] to go bed at the same time). I'll also note that he waited an entire hour to give up on me, it's not like he was breathing down my neck.

As I got ready for bed I was grumbling to myself that I have this ONE thing that I want to do for myself, and alllll day long I was taking care of everyone else and of course I wanted to be done sooner than I was but I wrote it at the soonest moment that I had to myself. Grumble grumble grumble.

As we laid in the dark to fall asleep, I was giving him the silent treatment. (I'm sure that he had no idea, and was rather enjoying how uniquely considerate I was being of his efforts to go to sleep).

In my grumpy silence I decided to reflect and make sure I understood why I was feeling upset with him. What had he actually done wrong? If it had been ME who was tired and ready for bed, waiting an hour for him to finish what he was doing would have been more than fair. It was then that I realized I wasn't so much mad at him, as I was frustrated that my blog had been so difficult to write and my post had been so underwhelming, and he was a convenient scapegoat. I had tried too hard to say something profound and in doing so, I had lost the feeling of authenticity that makes blogging so satisfying for me.

It was then that I had another 'a-ha' moment about why blogging every day was so important for me. If I blog every day, I am going to have some boring and crummy blog material. There will be no avoiding it. I will be forced to let go of trying to make every post something that everyone will love or be impressed by.

And if every post can't be amazing, then at least every post can be real. On days that I feel inspired to say something profound and wonderful, great. But on all those days in between, you're going to have to hear about poopy diapers and sleep schedules and look at pictures of my cute babies. Because that's what's real.