Sunday, June 28, 2015

Just a Little Bit Unusual

london, perfect weather, etc.


This is my sixth blog. Let's start there. I've been blogging since forever, or maybe just 2002. Something like that. The first platform I used didn't allow comments, but there was an option for people to email me. I made some friends. I fell in love, and it didn't work out. I kept writing. I wrote for the heady pleasure of knowing that people wanted to read what I wrote, and that I could read what they wrote, too. It was kind of a big deal, that first blog. I got married, and I stopped writing on it, because my life had changed. That was that. Farewell, first blog.


The blogs that came after that were a mix. Some were just parts of other social media platforms. One was for what I considered fairly serious writing, and when we decided to pursue adoption, I made a separate blog to keep people up to date. That was the fifth blog, the blog that took on a life of its own, even though I never intended it to be anything other than updates on our path to parenthood. But parenthood turned out to be infinitely more complicated than we guessed it would be, and for the last five years, it was mostly what I did. I parented. I parented hard. And I wrote about the hard, because it helped me feel less alone, and because I wanted people to know about the hard, should they pursue the same path. I wanted others who were on it to know they weren't alone either.

Now here we are, five years later, a family of four with a mostly normal life. Well, normal for us, anyway. (More on that in a minute.) I still parent pretty hard, but it's not the only thing I have time to think about. I'm not doing just enough self care to be able to spend another day schlepping my kids to multiple appointments and being somewhat patient. There were interests that got set aside in favor of being there for my kids when their needs were the most important thing I had to attend to, and they are starting to become part of my life again. We are living out some dreams we had. The chapter of life that I would call When Everything Was Hard But Sometimes Still Fun is nearly all written. I'll be wrapping things up on that fifth blog soon.

In a way, I feel like I'm starting back at the beginning, remembering why I liked to write in the first place. We all have our own way of living, and it's gratifying to share. This blog will be about a little bit of everything in my life now, and to the extent that it involves my husband and children, a little bit about their lives, too. We are doing a lot of very good living these days. I want to capture this time in our lives.

I've named this blog A Little Bit Unusual because that's what life is like now. We are Americans who have chosen to live in London. We are a transracial adoptive family. We homeschool our kids. We prefer travel to owning a vehicle. None of these things are that strange, and yet, they're not the status quo either. Life is just a little bit unusual. And I really like it that way.

7 comments:

  1. Hooray!!! So glad you are continuing to blog. And maybe post fashion pics again? I really love your style.

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    1. Yes! I will! I wasn't planning on it, but if you are requesting it, then I'll do it. :)

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  2. Same here - I followed you over from your 5th blog and am so glad you're continuing to write!

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    1. I'm glad you're here! Thanks for following me to the new space!

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  3. I'm just chiming in to say: yahoo! I'm glad you're still writing. As my mom likes to say, your writing "gives people hope and stuff." Xox

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  4. So glad you are back into blogging! And sharing your family news!

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