My list of failed blogs is one of the reasons why I think that I would be an unfit mother.
I’ve had about five blogs to date that I’ve abandoned, mainly due to—that’s just it. Due to what? What’s stopping me from writing? What’s stopping me from being a good mother?
My first blog, Coffee Filters, was an attempt at posting fanfiction* and short stories. I ended up scaring myself away from the project, because I’ve also abandoned writing stories when school got hectic.
My next blog was a complainer. I didn’t realize that I complained so much until I had it, but all I could think of filling it with was myself bemoaning little insignificances that really shouldn’t be shared, mainly because I don’t complain that much in real life, and also because why would I want to add to the cynicism growing on the Internet?Now the third blog was better. It was actually incited for one of my classes. I thought: “Wow, this is great! I could interview kids on campus on anything I want! I could make a difference with this blog!” That blog lasted one post, the requirement for the assignment, and I left it there on the Internet, all alone, gathering dust.
My fourth blog actually grew from the previous one, so I’m not sure if it can be counted as an individual one in it’s own right. It’s more of a tumor or, more positively, an extra appendage that I encouraged to take shape. This makes this blog the new arm on the starfish. It was more flexible, it got more use, and I actually kept up with it for a good while. I only abandoned it like one would do to a baby or a puppy on a doorstop, because, well, I wrote it while I was studying abroad, when life was way more interesting than it was now. Slowly, this beautiful blog, was just starting to depress me with how little traveling or shopping or adventuring I was doing back home. I pulled through, trying to relate my days of work and school in interesting ways, but my life was different now. A blog on travel didn’t deserve to be hacked off for a new, lame appendage of day-to-day life. I left this one in shame.
My fifth blog, this one, was a lot of fun to write and I didn't care that it was over thought and over worked, but I abandoned because of shame. Shame, because, during a meet and greet at my school for possible internships, one of the recruiters asked if I had a blog. Now dear fifth-y was my way of writing what I wanted to write: humor, and my best source of that was my own life. In a way, it was a transition form fourth-y, and instead of all these excellent travel travails, I was simply finding the humor in going to school, going to work, going to the store. It’s called The Squawkward Blog, a name I was so confident and proud of, that I didn’t hesitate to tell the recruiter this. And, she didn’t hesitate to whittle me down.
“Why was I writing a blog of awkward moments? Sure that could be funny for friends and family, but it wasn’t the sort of thing professional would want to see.”
In my head, I made these comments roll of my back. I knew these comments already. I knew what I told her was a risk.
“But why share them? Did I think that what I did on the Internet wouldn’t be kept with me forever? Look at Facebook!” She said.
I nodded along, agreeing and calling her m’am as if I had done something wrong.
“But that’s what I want to write,” I meekly defended myself. “That’s the writing I admire. It’s what I read.”
“But are you funny?” She reposted right back tit for tat. “Maybe a comedy class would suit you better.”
I’m sorry to say, that despite my bravado in coming into this entire meet and greet, I was slowly getting my feelings hurt.
The girl next to me, who I already considered a sister as we drank water and talked about our hopeful futures together in the communications field, came to my rescuing. She piped up about how she thought I was funny, but the recruiter didn’t give way to any bulwarking. The girl wasn’t going to ruin her own chances. Don’t sacrifice yourself on my part! I wanted to yell, albeit dramatically. There’s not room on that floating door for both of us! The Titanic has already sunk. Save yourself!
“It’s not about funny,” the recruiter bit. Literally, she bit back, as the waiter had brought her a juicy hamburger and she was cramming it in as she spoke to us, like the king of the castle. “It was about appropriate,” she said.
The situation grew entirely worst as other girls, vying for the recruiters attention, entered the conversation. I saw myself apart from them. They wore suits and proper blazers. They had their resumes in leather bound binders. I was in a cardigan and a bright fushia dress, which, at the time, looked office appropriate but now made me an actual target. My manilla folder of resumes wilted in my hands. The girl politely asked what we were talking about.
The recruiter acknowledged them, approvingly. I could see it in her eyes as she bit into that pickle spear. The air around us smelled tart. “This girl,” the recruiter motioned toward me, and I felt even more disgraced at that label. I didn’t have my name, despite only having given it to her a mere ten minutes before. My resume laid on the table soaking up pickle juice flecks. “Has a blog of awkward moments.”
The girls shook their heads in exaggerated disappointment. “Did you go to the lecture about cyber identities?” one girl asked me. Earlier we had exchanged information when she told me she had a videography site. It sounded interesting, and I enjoyed talking to her about it.
Cheerily, I replied that I had. Inside I was sour. Traitor.
“Well,” she said calmly. Her voice was like sand when we first spoke, but now I was reminded of gravel. “They spoke about how you should be careful about—”
I knew the spiel. We all knew the spiel. How that teacher was fired because she had a picture of her on Facebook with a red Solo cup. How employers now look to Facebook when they’re looking at potential hires. How my drunken mistakes, which there aren’t any really, and photographic proof of such could ruin my chances at the presidency!
I saw what I was now. I was that damn escape goat. The worse I looked, the better these girls did. They didn’t even need those leather binders to do it.
Somehow I escaped. Trapped as I was in the corner, I escaped and let the girls have at this woman, who had never read my blog, which I was sure to only have appropriate moments of funny, and I left.
I met my sister at the Cheesecake Factory to eat pasta. She asked me how it went, and I couldn’t say a thing other than that it was bad. It went bad. It went terribly, horribly, no-good, very bad day kind of bad. Baaad. Chanting this got me through the meal, but then over the cheesecake selection, I lost it completely, my eyes! They were letting the flood gates loose and no one, the waitress, my sister, or me were prepared for such displays in public.
There were fabric napkins. For some reason, I reasoned that this hallowed article of fabric was not to be used on my tears. It also seemed unsanitary since I just used it to wipe my pasta mouth.
Later on, I drove to my other sister’s to cry in her kitchen. I ate Ben and Jerry’s Pistachio, Pistachio without enjoying the taste, which is really quite a waste really so I vowed to eat more vegetables when I’m upset. I texted people that the entire meet and greet, which I was looking forward to, went very well. No one could question it when I added an idiotic happy face emoticon to the end of it. Despite the fact that I never use those!
I abandoned this blog after that but have, thankfully returned.
So what do I have to show for myself? I’m a failed blogger, possibly a bad mother, and a give-upper. If I learned anything from the last experience, which has ruined the beloved Squawkward Blog and pickles for me, it’s that what I’m doing or wanting to do might not fit in with what people expect. There are so many blogs out there dedicated to humor, which I appreciate, or politics, which the recruiter suggested I cover**, but everything, humor, politics, horses*** all have a niche. There’s a blog out there for all these things, and as long as I enjoy it, then maybe someone out there will too.*Now is the time to admit to my fanfiction craziness I think. Hello, I’m George. I’m a crazed fan who takes movies, shows, and books to the next crazy level by writing stories about them. Nice to meet you.
**Frankly, I believe that it’s pretty precarious to voice one’s opinions on a political level if one wants to get hired, unless it is to be a spit-fire political opinion maker.
***This was a real, albeit example, of a suggestion, which actually got me thinking. The recruiter, who I will admit might be heightened by my hurt feelings, suggested I write on an interest. Comedy or awkward moments were–are my interest really. I just have to build it appropriately I suppose.