"I used to be a blogger."
I've heard myself say those words to multiple people in miscellaneous conversations over the past several months, and every time I say the words, I get a little catch in my throat, and a twinge of sadness for the writer I used to be.
I blogged, fairly regularly, for a period of five years, and through my posts, I documented the launch of my boys into young adulthood, the growth of a ministry in which I actively served, and many a childhood memory that had come back to visit me, bearing one kind of lesson or another. I faithfully published the funny, the touching, the positive Pollyanna stories of my life.
What I didn't document was all the rest of it.
We do that, don't we? Nobody really wants to read the daily unloading of an Eyeore whose life is one disappointment after another. Readers want laughs and inspiration and a good time, and writers want to deliver those goods.
While I am unwilling to use this space to write about the breakdown of my marriage, I will sum it up by saying I've been living alone for just about a year, and everything--ALL.THE.THINGS.--are different now, compared to when I used to be a blogger.
Today somebody I love told me that when she first saw me after All The Things Changed, she felt like she was seeing a "new-ish" me, and that she had to grieve the loss of the person she used to know. I've thought about that all day. I've thought about how the changes happened. I've thought about the people who have stood by my side while the changes happened. I've thought about the people, like her, who live far away, and didn't even know the changes were happening until the dust had begun to settle. I've thought about the people who didn't stick around to see how the story would go, and I've thought about how I feel about the "new-ish" me.
The Old Me blogger would leave out all the parts about the times when I'm afraid, times when I'm sad, times when I'm not sure what I'm supposed to do next. The Old Me would be cute and funny and everything would seem fine. But the Old Me would miss out on all the growing and learning that can happen when all the things change. I'm grieving parts of the loss of the old me too. But along the way, I'm discovering that the New Me is not so bad. I'm finding my way in a new community. I've made new friends, and I've discovered which of my old friends would hang on for the ride, and which ones would drop me like a hot potato. I'm learning to see myself the way God sees me, how He really sees me, not how I may have been taught before. I'm learning that I'm smarter than I thought I was. I'm valuable. Brave. And, today I realized: I can still be a blogger.
