Well, HEY.
It’s been nearly four months since I’ve last blogged. That’s BY FAR the longest span of silence on here since 2007. 2007 when a newly announced pregnancy was, for the basic mom of America, synonymous with a newly announced blog. 2007 when I was Great With (my firstborn) Child. 2007 when I thought I had life a whole lot more figured out than I actually did.
Funny how that happens.
A lot has changed over the years. Laid-back blogging has given way to platforms and sponsorships and dollar signs. Writing for the sake of writing and blogging for the sake of documenting… I don’t know. Is that even a thing anymore?
I didn’t intend to take a step back from this space over the past few months. But summer happened. That epic summer of 2017 that will forever go down in history as That Time Mom Lost Her Voice For Weeks On End. No, I didn’t go completely mute, much to my children’s dismay. But I did walk around with a voice just raspy enough to prompt people to question my physical well-being. All summer long. “No,” I’d reply. “No, no. I’m not sick. This is just my summer voice.”
My summer voice: a direct result of answering the constant “mom mom mom mom mom” interrogations that echoed through my house for ALL OF THE WAKING HOURS THIS SUMMER.
So, yes. There was summer. And, I don’t know, just life. Work. Laundry. The crushing demands of The Daily Homework Folder. Maintaining our ever-present library fines. Seminary classes. (Huh? Yes. Seminary classes. WHAT EVEN IS MY LIFE RIGHT NOW. I don’t wanna talk about it.)
And then. THEN there’s this phrase that I find myself repeating on loop for one special child in my life (I feel my voice once again being siphoned away into nothingness just typing this):
“Oh, Unnamed-Child-O’Mine. Oh, precious little spit-fire. Hear me and hear me well. Everything that enters your brain does NOT have to exit your mouth. Think. Before. You. Speak.”
These words, y’all. I’ve been mulling over them for a while now. Four months, I guess.
Not everything that enters my brain has to be typed into words.
Not everything that my heart feels has to be processed publicly.
And not everything that my hands accomplish has to be photographed, filtered, and posted.
Sure, these past few months have been busy. Like, head-spinning, can’t-keep-up busy. Because, life. I’m not unique in this. But these past few months have also taught me that God is a far better keeper of my feelings and thoughts and prayers than my keyboard. And that I’d rather have intimacy with Him any day over a few virtual high-fives.
There is just so much good that comes in the quiet of the unblogged, unposted, un”liked” and unseen. This is a theme that I’ve heard swelling up around me for the past year or so. (Shout out to Sara Hagerty who hit on this so beautifully in her recent book which I just loved so much.) A call to embrace the quiet. An anthem for the beauty of the small. A reminder to be faithful to the real life here and now that God has handed us.
But I’ve also found that writers gonna write. And I’ve noticed this unfortunate trend: the longer I go without writing on here, the wordier I get on Instagram. Bless all of your Instagram-using, picture-loving hearts. Some people have a lot of words they have to speak in a day. I have a lot of words that come out of my fingers. I JUST CANNOT HELP IT. Jesus, take the wheel and shorten my captions.
I guess this is what I’m saying. I don’t care if blogging is SO 2008. I’ve decided that I kinda like it here. I like that my kids scroll through these pages to peruse old family pictures. I like that I scroll through these pages to see God’s faithfulness in written form. I like you people (heeey mom. heeey PawPaw. heeey weirdo spam commenters.) and the real life AND online conversations that have flowed from blog posts.
The truth is, I am just a teensy bit less crazy when I write. I know this. Matt knows this. He knows it so well that he has urged me on more than several recent occasions that I should “probably get back to writing”- that “it’s, you know, a good way to process things.” Hey, Matt. I CAN TAKE A HINT.
And so, in a season that feels like all of the crazy, I think I’m back. Maybe to keep writing words. Or maybe just to overpost kid pics. But I’m back to blog like it’s 2008. Because nobody’s got time for the crazy.
