I miss blogging.

This of course might sound strange. And admittedly, it does to me, too. I spent years blogging, and while I loved it — I also longed for something more.

I watched as others signed contracts and launched books, and there was that quiet discontent because writing that book was always a someday and not a today. It’s like the oh-so-original analogy of being last to be picked for a team.

I knew (ok, hoped) I would be the one writing that book. One day. Me — a real author.

That day is here. The book is (ever-too-slowly) being written.

But the feeling of competition? The jealousy? The discontent? All the same. That feeling of “making it” after getting my contract? Lasted less than 48 hours.

For anyone who is a fellow writer, this may be a surprise. It sure surprised me, too. To realize I achieved the very thing I set out to do — only to deeply miss the art of blogging (on my own space.)

Not that I am undermining the value in this book I’m writing. I absolutely think it sill be worth it. And in time, with lots of work, I think it will be really good. (At least that’s the goal.)

Perhaps I just didn’t understand the value of of feeling feel so free to voice my thoughts as a blogger. Maybe I just miss my thoughts unfettered.

There is a hindrance now, an expectation. And maybe no one has placed it on me other than … me.

I used to feel that just coming here and being honest and being transparent in my fears, flaws and failures was enough. That somehow, if I was honest about hurting, and you were hurting, we could just hurt together. And that would be enough.

But now I feel I must offer solutions, not just words describing a problem. I must inspire hope, or faith, or something.

Being honest stopped being enough.

And that pressure to produce hinders my voice.

Vulnerability, once my strength to a fault, now feels like a weakness. I am terrified of telling collective-you of what my day-to-day looks like. What goes on in my heart. My fears, my hopes, my failures.

As my family evolves and morphs, I find myself fiercely protective. As my parenting falls under intense scrutiny as a foster parent, I don’t want any more eyes on me. Not that I have reason to hide. Only that I am so incredibly sensitive to any feedback that I’m doing this wrong.

As my faith evolves, as it should, I fear the pushback.

Jamie Wright, author of “The Very Worst Missionary,” writes that acknowledging the wrong in your beliefs, even while being grateful for the journey, is is like taking a jackhammer to your childhood home. (Or something like that — clearly not a direct quote.)

I have felt that so keenly. Fresh eyes and new perspectives daily challenge who I was, what I believed, and where I stand now. And while it feels right, it also feels so very wrong. As though to be any person than the one I always have been is a huge betrayal to all I valued in myself growing up.

Admittedly where I stand now feels like shifting sand … it’s not that there isn’t a foundation down there, somewhere.

But rather that the foundation has been covered by sort-of-truths and almost-truths and untruths I never thought to challenge until now. As I’m challenging them, they shift and some give way, and I find myself searching for balance and stability.

And nothing about any of this feels safe.

In the middle of it all is my own insecurity. The one I’m afraid to admit because the last thing I want is for you to feel some sort of obligation to assure me that my words matter and I should still write. (Even saying, “hey, sometimes I’m insecure” sounds so dang … I don’t know … needy?)

Of course, I hope you find my words helpful. Of course, I want to write and make a difference. Of course, I want to be all literary, and you to find me brilliant. (Of course, I admit that my “wanting” and my “deserving” of these things are not at all the same.)

And yet, like anyone else who has had to ever promote their own work, I find myself wondering … What message do I truly have to share, right now, that is worth you reading? Are my words truly that important?

I ask myself this every day. As I suppose, I should, since I call myself a communicator.

Every day I shift through the fodder of my daily thoughts, my experiences, my education, my relationships, my faith, and wonder, “What here is worth sharing? What will make a difference to that person on the other side of the screen?”

Sometimes I get it right. Other times, so wrong. I over or under share. I share something no one can relate to. I share a solution that only seemed to work for me. I trigger a grieving person, or seem overly pessimistic to a thriving person.

In my own insecurity, in my own personality that demands perfection and performance, this fear of getting it wrong makes me reject the very thing that helped give me purpose, give me community, give me introspection and understanding … this blog.

My lifeline.

But if I cannot be me, make mistakes, get it wrong, and occasionally tell you things like, “I’m a woman who values confidence yet struggles with insecurity” … even though those very words make me cringe …

If I cannot be me here? The very place I once poured out my heart and soul?

If I cannot be me, then blogging would be so very hard, and difficult, and everything I don’t like about writing.

If I cannot be fully me than I just don’t see how I can blog.

But since I miss blogging … since my heart just keeps saying, “you need to open up again” … I know I need to start showing up, not as anything other than me.

So yes, I’m an author. And yes, I’m a writer.

But dang it … I’m a blogger, too. And that’s a title I’m just not willing to give up any time soon.

The post Why blogging is just so hard. (At least for me.) appeared first on The Lewis Note.