I’ve said it all before. I’ve tried to find the urge to blog again too, in various times and in various ways.
But honestly? I don’t believe in it any more. I don’t feel safe doing it. The idea of writing something controversial and the meanness of what some people will do with that horrifies me, the idea of writing something that appeals, something that I put my heart into, and people thinking that I wrote it for hits, for kudos, for stats and PR approval disgusts me.
There have been so many times when I’ve wanted to write about how life is now, so many years after the most cataclysmic event of my life and worried that people would think I was using grief and Freddie’s name to generate attention. And so I didn’t write and in a funny way that was a grief too and in a funny way it silenced me in ways that were freeing and damaging all at once. I feel less deeply than I used to – and I’m not sure, in that damaged state, if you can write in a way that lays your feelings bare.
And then, the internet is not what it was, my children are all grown up with friends – or not such friends – who could google and wound and sneer and I’ve become a more private person because of that. Nor do I want them to read all my thoughts either, so that worry silenced me too. But in all honesty, the feeling that I could never match the searing need to write after Freddie’s death did it most, along with the anxiety of being seen to capitalise that.
I knew, when I was put in a position of having to monetise my blog, that it would ruin it for me and I was right, but I’m profoundly grateful for the lifeline that was at the time, without which we would have sunk hard and fast. But it did ruin it and I can’t ever go back to that. The thought of worrying about my Klout score, my stats, my standing in any community makes me feel a bit dirty now, even though I know it is still (and quite rightly and fairly) a driving force and a source of stability and self worth for many. That’s great, if you need it, or it pulls your strings, but it stopped doing so for me. It ended up being just somewhere else for me to feel inadequate. The friends though, the opportunities for contact and fun and laughter and community – oh how I loved that, and how I miss it. Even if I don’t want to be part of the endless hashtagging of my life, I’ll miss that community and I hope many of those people will continue to be in my future.
I knew, when I didn’t blog Fran’s finished crocheted 18th birthday blanket, or my first chick reaching 18 for that matter, that it was over. She left home 3 weeks ago and I didn’t blog that either. Maybe I no longer want to remember how all these things make me feel. I can’t document the enormous sense of inadequacy that children with anxiety, depression or frustrated rage give me either; my story role in that process is something I need to keep to myself – my burden and distress is part of the story that their right to privacy demands stays hidden. I don’t think I want to remember that I’m a part time, schooling mum to Bene, who I wanted so much, or a human who struggles with her weight and can’t get off the anti-depressants, or who seems to have lost her knack for just doing everything – well – all the time. So why would you have a blog if you can’t write those things?
So many bits of my life have moved on how from how I spend my week with my own children to the kids I coach each night at gymnastics or the ones I mentor at Young Enterprise and all of that is guarded by a need to privacy. And so am I, my marriage, my sense of self preservation. And once that has gone, so has blogging.
I’m not who I was in 2003 when I started these pages, nor is the world or the www what it was either. And so, I don’t think I’ll be back and, probably, I’ll be archiving much of what has been recorded here too. I have a sort of odd, half baked plan of moving some things elsewhere and writing in some new way, but I don’t know if I will. If I do ever come back to blogging, it will be in my other place, the person I grew into, not here, the blog of everything that once was.
Thanks for reading all these years. It’s been a privilege.
This has given me goosebumps. So much of it resonates for me, too. I miss the online world we used to have which was ours. I miss reading blogs like yours where I felt I knew the children even though we’d never met. And I miss your words. Sending love.
Lots of love back. I long for the old days.
I have been a reader forever. Thank you for sharing. Sending you only the bestest of wishes. Much love to you and yours.
Thank you for all the reading and thoughts over the years xxx
Thinking of you all Merry and sad that I won’t get to peep in at what you are up to anymore. Thanks for sharing and caring over the years xx
Thank you and all my very best wishes to you. PS – there is always Instagram. I’m not disappearing totally!
Oh Merry, yes, so many things are so different now. I started home edding in 2003, not long before my now teenage daughter was born. The boys I home educated are grown up. One is married and lives in Germany, the other is at university. So much has changed. I’ve followed you sporadically over the years and, yes, it becomes harder to blog as the children grow older. The internet is a much changed thing. xx
Goodness – so grown up! How can they all be so big?
My trip to London will always have fond memories of our walk through the park intertwined – I’m so glad we have that memory to share.
The blogging world is so different now, and I completely understand the need for privacy.
Much love, Merry. <3
Oh me too, I loved that afternoon. A cherished memory and very precious to me.
I think I started reading your words when Sophia was just a babe, almost 8 years ago. I learnt a lot from what you had to say and thank you for your honesty and sharing your life. Wish you all the best as you go forward and perhaps start afresh somewhere else xx
Thank you xxx
Oh Merry I love you. My inbox will be a less interesting place without your posts. Much love xxx
Thank you. I really hope I catch up with people soon; Haytor???
Your friends are still here, still caring, and wishing you well. Thinking you are amazing, even with imperfections.
Like your other readers, I see how blogging has changed.
I actually feel sorry for people who have blogged for only a few years. They’ll never see that sort of community, that sort of story-telling. I’m not sure those blogs exist any more, and I miss them in a way I can’t really express – although Rachael does it very well. For me, in a different way to you, it was a life saver. After my divorce when i was broke and on the edge of the precipice blogging gave me friends, and people who read about my worries, and cheered me on.
Maybe it’s just one of those things you cherish as a memory. It’s not the same now, it’s a different world, for better or worse. And there’s a strength in knowing when it’s not for you, and there are other things that need your attention.
Your friends are still here, still caring, and wishing you well. Thinking you are amazing, even with imperfections.
Like your other readers, I see how blogging has changed.
I actually feel sorry for people who have blogged for only a few years. They’ll never see that sort of community, that sort of story-telling. I’m not sure those blogs exist any more, and I miss them in a way I can’t really express – although Rachael does it very well. For me, in a different way to you, it was a life saver. After my divorce when i was broke and on the edge of the precipice blogging gave me friends, and people who read about my worries, and cheered me on.
Maybe it’s just one of those things you cherish as a memory. It’s not the same now, it’s a different world, for better or worse. And there’s a strength in knowing when it’s not for you, and there are other things that need your attention.
Thank you Sally, for those words and all the friendship and opportunities too.
This post really hits home. You have tapped in to something which I think many of us are feeling, blogging and www are so different to what they were, the enjoyment just isn’t there.
I hope, that if you feel like writing is in someway going to be a healthy outlet for you, that you find your way back, I think going anonymous has a lot of appeal, something to think about maybe.
I wish you all the very best, thank you for sharing snippets of your life over the years, it’s been an honour to read xx
Wow, the end of an era. I can totally understand why you’ve made this decision though *hugs*
I so GET it. I really do. I did not have the stories you had but the teen years are angst ridden yet also private….. and the abuse you CAN get. I SO get it. Hope the eldest is doing ok at college/uni. You take care now.
End of ‘an era’ but also start of something new as always.
I’ll always remember the yours as the first blog I discovered as I googled home education and how I followed your story with interest as as I began our journey. So much is different now but I will always be grateful for the encouragement, ideas and reasssurement. I got from the words on each page. It helped shape and guide us and continues to influence us today. Thankyou for that passion, and for those words.
Wishing you and all your family the very best,
Oh Merry, I’ll miss your family tales. You and I first chatted in the week you lost Freddie, and I’ve been following you ever since. And I hold you in huge part responsible for my own Home Ed journey (and thank you more than you know for being the voice of reassurance in the early days).
I do totally understand – personal blogging through the teen years is impossible; you can’t teach them the value of privacy & personal space if you’re wilfully sharing so much, and when all of it must be monitored and approved it loses the innate value and impetus of writing in the first place.
LittleStuff was never about a personal journey, and so the changes over the last 15yrs haven’t affected me the way they have affected so many of the beloved bloggers I followed years ago, so many of whom have moved on. But my own personal just-for-me blog of private thoughts has gathered dust and recorded no memories for the last couple of years.
I love your writing, and I am so looking forward to the book that will come from all that free writing time you have now though 😉 xx
You will have to call me six monthly to give me updates. I miss all the blogging was and whilst it has given me a career I didn’t envision I miss the days when blogging was creative and stories. You life has always been part of my world and I love that. I watched Bene come into the world and the girls grow, I can’t see a Daffodil without thinking of Freddie.
I shall sorely miss reading your words xxxx
It has been such a privilege to get an insight into your life and family and highs and lows over the years. Thank you for sharing so honestly and writing so beautifully.
Ah Merry. I first found your blog when I was being home educated as a teenager. Later I came across it again when my eldest was little and we were researching home education. My middle child was born three days before Freddie, so I am always reminded of him at that time of year. It has been a privilege to read about you and your family over the years. Best wishes to you all, wherever your journeys take you.
It’s so strange, I haven’t looked at your blogs for years and felt inclined to today when you’ve written your last. I first read your writing when my first son was miserable at school and I was flexischooling. Your competence and approach to homeschooling really had me in awe and I decided I couldn’t do it full time mainly because I want brave enough, I also needed to work, but also because I knew I couldn’t be as wonderful at it as you!. They are now growing fast, and I really get the bit about the teenage years, and about the www. But you are a pioneer who inspired so many and my home life with kids, even though they went to school, has been enriched by all that you blogged. Thank you x