I\'m Summer, a mouthy, sarcastic bitch. I\'m passionate about natural birth, long term breastfeeding, and living naturally. I curse too much, love tattoos, and will some day be crushed to death by my book collection. I homeschool, dream of gardening, and swing to the left. 
I Think I’ve Lost My Voice
photo credit: Jaci Berkopec
When Evan was only a few months old I started this crazy blogging thing. At first I wrote at a private journal community. It was closed off, restricted from the rest of the world. I wrote because I needed a place to vent, to babble, and to get out my thoughts while trapped at home with a new baby. Having that privacy made me more open online. I shared personal stories, called people out, and basically didn’t care. Sometimes what I said was popular, sometimes it wasn’t. There was no feed stats or hit counter, no way to know if people were linking back to me or talking about me. So I just wrote.
And then I decided to try being a “real blogger”. I moved to my then Blogspot hosted blog and began spilling my guts to the entire world. Except something happened. I started caring what other people thought. I learned to put on a happy face, share the good stuff instead of the bad, bite my tongue when a rant was coming on. I started caring about feed numbers and hit counts and link backs. And somewhere in there I lost my voice.
Or, more honestly, I threw it away. I decided that my authentic voice sucked. It was middle school all over again, where I was afraid that the real me would be laughed out of the cafeteria and forced to use to bathrooms at the far end of the school to avoid people. So I took what I thought sucked and tossed it in the trash, then put on a new face that more closely resembled what I thought I was supposed to be.
Yeah, it didn’t work back then. I have no clue why I thought it would work this time.
Slowly I’ve been trying to find the pieces of that real me. The one who laughs too loudly, says inappropriate things, calls people assholes when they deserve it, and isn’t embarrassed to admit that I didn’t get a shower today this week. The one that’s sitting here when I turn the computer off.
Hi, I’m Summer. Sometimes I flash my boobs, sometimes I laugh at dirty jokes, there are days when I want to drop the kids off at a relative and run off to Vegas, and I can’t guarantee that I put on deodorant this morning. I still love my kids madly, I still try to hug trees, I still want to raise chickens and grow a garden and live on a hippie commune somewhere far far away. And if you come over I’ll serve organic tea and homemade biscuits, then I’ll probably tell fart jokes or tell you about the time I used to take acid and philosophize on religion with a punk who called himself Trotsky.
I’m loud and opinionated and weird, and not everyone is going to like that. I should be used to that by now, gods knows I spent high school and college being the uncool girl that wore weird clothes. Heh, that’s just me.
I promise not to write about things that no one wants to read about, like cleaning the litter box and vaginal dryness. And I swear there will still be plenty of mommy stuff here. But sometimes, I’m going to tell jokes that no one gets but me and have opinions that no one else would have. And sometimes, just sometimes, I might even be cool.
Good for you for taking back your space. This post really hit the spot for me this morning. The blogosphere has a way of inspiring group think and before you know it, you are rolling right along with it. Many times it is simply not healthy. Just as an real life when you spend too much time worrying about what other people think, you lose yourself.
Renee\´s last blog post..Baby Wipes Terrence Howard thinks Chris Brown Is A Great Guy
uck’em! I love your posts! Even if you wrote about vaginal dryness and dropping acid i would probably just shake my head in agreement and smile a little bit more that day.
oh wait… i think i just did.
<3 erin
~Erin
Twitter: @erinjeany
ejsmomej[at]gmail[dot]com
http://ejsmomej.blogspot.com/
Erin\´s last blog post..Elijah’s Announcements – Magnet Street Baby
uck’em! I love your posts! Even if you wrote about vaginal dryness and dropping acid i would probably just shake my head in agreement and smile a little bit more that day.
oh wait… i think i just did.
<3 erin
Erin\´s last blog post..Elijah’s Announcements – Magnet Street Baby
I’ve had a bad week and you’ve just brightened my day. I can’t wait to hear more of that voice in the future. Go you!
~Rose.
Rose\´s last blog post..Official Nerd Alert
But vaginal dryness is the main reason I read your blog!
Good for you. Take back your voice. It’s the best part of you! And if anyone doesn’t like it, well, maybe they need help with their own vaginal dryness.
Jill\´s last blog post..Two Awesome Links
I have to agree with the above- vaginal dryness is always fun to read about. And fart jokes. And please swear more.
I love you just the way you are.
Susan Lindgren\´s last blog post..Hot and Cold
Vaginal dryness? I honestly won’t pretend there’s any info there that I need, but if you write it I’ll probably read it. That seems to be how it works.
I’ve thought about this idea a lot lately, the idea of losing your voice, or as you described it, giving up your voice. I’m wondering if I used to blog in a voice not quite my own or if I’m doing so now.
With the things that I have been and am going through it’s hard to really decide which is more the case. While I’m being mostly more honest lately, it’s definitely changed the tone of my blog.
I almost think it would be a good idea to go through some of my older posts and see if I can get a feel for some of what I was doing way back when, try it on for size maybe.
sam\´s last blog post..oh really