Wait. Didn’t there used to be a blog here?
That’s what you are saying in my head. All of you. Apparently, you all fit in my head and while you are in there you are easily confused.
Yes. There used to be a website here. It is now gone.
Well, not GONE gone. It still exists, it’s just private. It’s…well. Let’s start at the beginning, shall we?
It begins, as so many things do, when I found myself rocking a one-month old baby in the nursery at 3 in the morning with tears streaming down my cheeks as I pondered how motherhood had made me a shell of my former self.
I know, right? How much better can this story get?
Even at the time, even in the depths of the self-indulgent wallowing that was that night, I knew that it wasn’t true. I knew that motherhood had, in fact, added a new richness and self-awareness to my life that I wouldn’t have had otherwise. But what mattered is that it felt true. And when something feels true, you tend to take it seriously, even if the objective facts don’t bear the feeling out. So I took it seriously. And I started thinking.
This thinking took me down a few false roads and I’ve had a few mini-plans that didn’t pan out, because I wasn’t willing to face the reality that needed to be faced: this blog isn’t going to get me where I need to be. It’s just not.
Motherhood hasn’t made me a shell, but it has slowly killed off parts of myself that previously were important. My interest in American culture, my creativity, my relationships with people outside my family, my sense of humor oh my lord. And that one hurt the most. I don’t know how to be me if I’m not laughing or making other people laugh. I just don’t.
So, it’s no wonder that I felt like I had disappeared. I had. There were new parts of me that came into being, of course, many new good parts, but they weren’t enough to offset the disappearing act. I was feeling invisible.
And you know what doesn’t help feeling invisible? Do you know what makes you feel even more invisible?
Writing an anonymous blog on the internet. Go figure.
There are practical concerns, as well. I mean, if I ever want someone to take my writing seriously, what is there to prove that the person writing here is me? Further, even if they do believe it’s me, am I comfortable with them reading some of the stuff that was here, knowing it was me?
Old Yankee privacy habits die hard, even in the internet age.
So this is the end of Alias Mother. I’ll spare you the speeches. Partly because it has all been said before. This blog has helped me find my voice, and a community, and a goodly part of myself. But it is time to go.
But not really.
(What gave it away? The title? You clever minx, you!)
Come visit me in my new home. It’s open to all, even those who know me in real life and that last part has me dry heaving, but so it goes. I’ll get over it. It won’t be as personal in some ways, but it will be more personal in others. Anonymity was freeing, but it was also strangely limiting. And being non-anonymous will, likewise, be limiting but freeing.
I’ll stop talking now. Well, I’ll stop talking here. I’ll still be talking there. Hopefully for a good long time.
Yes.
Right.
Thank you, you beautiful people.
As you were.
Alias Mother 