Why

One of my favourite bloggers and all round lovely internet sort @SunnivaAnne recently gave her answer to the following question on her blog: Why do you blog?

At the bottom of her post she tagged some other bloggers, requesting that they answer the same question. I was among them, which was really nice.

I feel a tiny smidge fraudulent writing this post. Why do I blog? Well, if you look at the recent history of my corner of web it has all gone a bit quiet. You could knock the first word off the question and it would still be valid. But I am (finally, after quite a delay) writing this post, so I guess that qualifies me as a blogger still. Just one who's been doing a fair bit of navel gazing in recent weeks.

So then, why do I blog?

When I first started doing it, I'll be honest, it was a whim. Cam was two months away from making his ex utero debut and I'd taken a week off work. I was probably meant to be doing some productive, baby preparation type stuff. Instead, I decided to start a blog. 

During the pregnancy, Mrs L had been spending some time on Bounty.com. I'm sure you know it. I think it's broadly similar to Mumsnet. Or Netmums. Or NotDadsNet. Or something. Anyway. I had the odd glance at it and didn't really see anything for me (they have a dads section, you can just about see the hyperlinks behind all the rolling clumps of tumbleweed. The last discussion was about Euro '96 I think*). So I thought I'd start writing some stuff from a dad's perspective. Not that I was one. I didn't know who I was writing for. Myself? Probably. Some undiscovered audience of men who wanted to read about babies? Maybe. I really had no idea. But I did think that I would probably have thoughts about being a dad, and it might be nice to have those thoughts written down.

I could have started writing a diary, but the most I can write on paper these days is a birthday card. Even that threatens me with hand cramp. 

I like writing. I always have. In my cockier moments I even think I'm reasonably good at it. Most of the time I think I'm not awful. I genuinely didn't expect to find that other people might read what I put down. It was a pleasant surprise when they did. 

When Cam was born it was an incredible experience for me. I wept in the delivery room as I laid eyes on my son for the first time. I blogged about it because I want to remember how that felt. Every time I sit down and spill some words onto the blog I am recording how I feel about something, at that specific moment. Sometimes it is cathartic. Sometimes it helps me work out how I'm feeling when just thinking about it couldn't do that. Sometimes (often) I'm asking for advice. Sometimes I'm trying to connect with the people who are reading. Sometimes I'm blogging just because.

For the first twelve weeks of Cam's life, when it felt impossible to do anything outside of the house (apart from endless walks around our town with a screaming baby) I blogged because it was a way to still feel like I was part of an outside world. It's no coincidence that I'm blogging less now that Cam is a mostly happy, smiling baby. 

Why do I blog? Because I can. Because I like it. Because I hope I can make someone smile. Because it helps me to smile. Because there are some fantastic people in the blogging community and I want to remain a part of it. Because I'd love to be a writer, but I haven't quite tried that yet.

Would you like to answer the same question? Please consider yourself tagged if you would, and let me know where I can find your post :-)