What Do You Blog About?

    Recently I was talking to a lady I know.  I mentioned in passing that I was now writing a blog.  Her face lit up with interest, I had her in the palm of my hand.  "What do you blog about?" the look on her face said that she thought maybe I blogged about the cure for cancer that I had found, or some dinosaur bones I had extricated from the back yard.  "I blog about my daily life." I told her.
It was at this point that the interest left her face, "But aren't you a stay at home mom?".  Now she was hurting my feelings, but I trained my face to look indifferent (at least I hope that's what it looked like, it may have looked like I was constipated, I didn't have a mirror), "Yes", I said, trying to remove the injury not only from my face, but from my voice.  "And people read it?" she asked, with her face all screwed up. I don't think she was trying to be mean spirited, just perhaps lacking in tact.  It was at this point that I may have exaggerated the truth, maybe just a little.  I told her that I had hundreds of followers (in reality I only have 11).  "Oh I don't know why anyone would want to read it, but they sure do!"  I then made some excuse why I had to leave her company.
    I emotionally limped away from that conversation, proverbial tail between my legs.  Now an emotionally strong person would just slough this off, but as you may know, I am not emotionally strong, at least not in that way.  The old bully that lives in the back part of my brain came out for a visit.
"You know she's right, why would anyone want to hear what you have to say?  Who do you really think you are?"  Sometimes that bully can be pretty mean spirited.  I was acknowledging the bully's words, when my inner fighter came out.  "Oh my life is anything but boring." I truthfully reassured myself (if you are wondering if I am insane at this point, you may be correct.  Do you mean that you do not conduct inner dialogues in your brain?).  No I am not finding the cure for cancer, but I am raising little human beings who may.  I am molding and shaping our future.  That sounds very high handed with the praise, but it is the truth.
    I have often looked at Christopher and wondered aloud how we have ever been able to get through our lives as emotionally intact as we have.  I truly have a wealth of knowledge to share with the world. My life has been anything BUT boring, boring would be a big improvement over most of what I have lived through.  I married my university sweetheart, only to discover that we were not emotionally mature enough to be married.  This discovery happened after the birth of our first born son.  I was a single mother at age 24.  I worked hard to make a better life for Gabriel and I.  After being separated for 5 years, (and not dating in between because I did not feel it was fair to Gabriel), I rediscovered love with my now matured first husband.  I suffered a miscarriage that nearly killed me (emotionally), and naively at that time thought was the worst pain imaginable.  I conceived and then gave birth to a beautiful little girl.  My husband and I became foster parents to two children, a brother an a sister, and made a difference in their lives.  I had to sit idly back and watch these two children returned to their mentally unstable mother, a mother who had starved them, and left them to raise themselves.  I had two more miscarriages.  I discovered that I was expecting twins (months after the ultrasound in which the ultrasound technician had told me it was a single pregnancy).  I carried my twins nearly to term (36 weeks) and gave birth to a 6 pound 12 oz boy and a 6 pound 4 oz girl, both huge by twin standards.  When my twins were only 5 months old, my two oldest children and I were in a catastrophic accident.  I was half an hour away from bleeding to death in a hospital bed (the hospital was ill-equipped to handle an accident such as ours, and because I was not making a lot of noise they forgot about me).  I stood in the freezing cold darkness, waiting for an ambulance (that had gotten lost) all the while trying to wake my unconscious child, and calm my three year old who had a car seat wedged into her leg, breaking the bone.  We waited for hours for help to come.  I prayed and lived in hope that my child would recover from his brain injury, all the while I received blood transfusions and pain medication.  I held my 9 year old first born son while he died on Christmas Eve.  I was released from hospital before I should have been because I had to plan a funeral for my 9 year old son.  I have had to care for infant twins, and a physically and emotionally damaged 3 year old who suffered from night terrors and was terrified of policemen, firefighters, and ambulance sirens, and terrified of the darkness.  I have nursed that damaged 3 year old through 5 surgeries in 7 years.  I have had lived through chronic pain because of injuries in the car accident, and many surgeries of my own.  I became pregnant at age 36 with a child, not to replace my lost child, but to fill the gap he left in our home and in our hearts.  I spent a month of my life in hospital because of complications in my pregnancy.  Throughout all of this I have run a children's charity that supplies winter clothing for local children at no cost to them.  I have done this for the last 15 years.  I volunteer at my children's schools.  I sat on the parent council for our school, and last year became the chair.  I do all of this and have come through all of this still with the mindset that I am a mother before everything else.  I would lay down my life for my children, and nearly did.  Yes I am a stay at home mother, but my life has been anything but boring!
    Here's the thing, we all have gifts.  Who among us has not felt like they were the only one going through an ordeal, be it big or small?  Who has not wished that they had someone to talk to, someone to assure them that what they are going through is normal.  Who has not wished for someone to hold their hand in their darkest hour and reassure them that life will be o.k. in the end?  I would like to be that hand.  I feel like by sharing my life experience, I might help another person through their ordeal.  If I can still have a sense of humour about my life, after I have walked through Hell and back, maybe you can too.
    What do I blog about?  I blog about my life.  I blog about my everyday life.  My life is never boring, even though I sometimes wish that is was.  I blog about the life that I am making for my children, and for myself.  I blog about our adventures, and those adventures are important.  I blog about how I am making memories, both good and bad for children.  I blog therefore I am.

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