I look forward to the Ultimate Blog Party every year. I love making new connections, and I make a few new friends each time around.
I started my first blog in 2001, and this one has been going since 2004. That’s a decade. It’s hard, at times, not to compare myself to the celebrity bloggers, and wonder why I haven’t hit the big time. But their stories are not mine, and my story is not theirs.
So, what is my story?
The answer to that question is continuously evolving. Right now, I am the mother of a 5 year old, wife of a 38 year old, former cancer patient in the midst of reconstruction, and a full-time college student who will, if everything goes right and I actually pass these classes, graduate in 6 weeks with a Bachelors degree in social sciences.
Blogging hasn’t been my top priority lately.
But I love blogging. I cherish the friendships I made through this medium. I cherish the product, this collection of stories, that resulted from these years at this blog. I didn’t start out with this intent, but when the reality of my own mortality was shoved in my face, I was comforted with the knowledge that I had at least something of myself to leave behind for my then infant daughter. I don’t plan on dying any time soon, but that idea stays with me as I write. So in the 4 years since my cancer diagnosis, this blog has become something more. It is a love letter, to my daughter, to my husband, my friends, the world, to life itself.
Want to know more?
Here are a few posts to get you started:
Cancerversary – thoughts on the anniversary of my cancer diagnosis, and my life right now.
Living in the Gap – “We don’t get practice time, and then go out and live our lives after we’ve perfected ourselves. We go out and try things, see if they work, we fall down, we get up, we embarrass ourselves, we don’t die of embarrassment – but we don’t get to practice life without an audience.”
Just Breathe – “As long as you have breath, you have this moment.”
I’ve had a little practice with change management – those changes that are planned months and years in advance, those changes that come out of nowhere and leave you off balance with your head spinning, and those little gradual changes that sneak up on you, and one day you realize your baby is half your height, and has opinions that are very much all her own.
The best parts of my life came about through change, as did the worst. I’ve been thinking about my attraction/repulsion response to change – sometimes both sensations at the same time in regards to the same issue.
CoffeeJitters has been a single girl making her way in the world blog, a wedding blog, an infertility blog, a photography blog, a quitting my job and going back to school full time blog, a wow! I’m pregnant! blog, a mommy blog, a cancer blog, and a relearning how to dream after cancer blog.
I’m still trying to relearn how to dream after cancer. It’s surprising how much imagination and willpower it takes to re-imagine your future after this kind of diagnosis. But, now I’ve moved on a little, from dreaming to planning, and even doing. Baby steps, people.
This blog is my story, my life, and mostly, a very public love letter to my husband and daughter. If you’d like to read more, here are a few of my favorites to get you started:
People ask me what my blog is about, and every time I pause. I know I’m supposed to have an elevator speech prepared, I guess it’s time I start thinking about that.
This blog has been through so many iterations. I started the first CoffeeJitters blog on LiveJournal back in 2001. It’s hard to believe it’s been more than ten years since that first blog post. A lot has changed over that decade.
CoffeeJitters has been a single girl making her way in the world blog, a wedding blog, an infertility blog, a photography blog, a quitting my job and going back to school full time blog, a wow! I’m pregnant! blog, a mommy blog, a cancer blog, and a relearning how to dream after cancer blog.
Mostly, it’s a love letter to my daughter and husband, and an ongoing autobiography. It is my story, and my practice honing my voice. It is my chance to be heard.
I think in a way, that’s what a lot of us bloggers are doing. I keep picturing all the bloggers of the world at their computers furiously typing away in a clackity-clack version of the Whos that Horton heard, yelling at the top of their lungs, “We Exist!”
Blogging allows us to make our mark on the world. To show that we exist. To have a voice and have it heard. To contribute to the ongoing story of the human race.
My studies recently have centered a great deal around women’s history throughout the world, and the difficulty involved in truly understanding what a woman’s life was like. Mens stories were recorded, by men. Women’s stories… not so much.
I look at blogging in comparison to that and I think: what a gift we are leaving for future generations. Is there any comparable resource in history to the wide range of women’s stories now available? Sure, there’s a good deal of exaggeration. That also exists in our history books. But there is so much more variety of stories and lifestyles represented. I’m proud to be a part of this movement. I’m so happy that future generations will have such a wealth of information about their ancestors – us. (On second thought, maybe I’d better go clean up a few of my posts)
This is my first Ultimate Blog Party with 5 Minutes for Mom, and I’m excited about it. I’d love to meet more bloggers. I love the interaction and sense of community that comes with blogging.
I’m a breast cancer survivor. I was diagnosed a year ago, just before my baby’s first birthday. A little over a year later and she’s almost two, and I’m almost done with treatment, but cancer is still part of my every day life. If you want to know what this blog is about, that’s a good start.
Why is it so difficult to take a self portrait where you don’t look stoned? Or is it just me with that problem?
Before breast cancer, this was a mommy blog.
Before I got pregnant, I swore I’d never let my blog turn in to a mommy blog. It’s still a mommy blog, but cancer, and parenting with cancer weighs in as well.
What’s wrong with having a mommy blog, anyway? I write about what I’m passionate about. I write about my husband, too. But most of that passion is left off the page. No worries. This blog is mostly PG. But I can be snarky at times. Or sarcastic. Sometimes both at the same time.
I’m also a full time college student trying to finish up a degree in Social Sciences while my husband finishes up his Master’s Degree in Near Eastern Languages and Cultures. That means, with cancer, and a toddler, that I’m really, really busy. I don’t post every day. Sometimes not even every week. But when I do post, I hope it’s interesting, or makes you think, or even better, smile.
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