What Happened to My Header Image (and why I'm not sure if I'm cut out for this blogging business)
>> Friday, June 18, 2010
On Wednesday night, I had trouble falling asleep, and once sleep finally came, I had restless dreams, and once the dreams finally left me in peace, my Early Bird children began their morning bickering...all culminating with me being in a very foul mood.
The kind of mood that needs fresh air.
So I abandoned my boys to their granola bowls and stepped into the backyard, and ended up spending an hour pruning tomatoes and training cucumbers and planting flowers while my children danced around me like fairies. By the time we went inside, my inner beast was soothed.
And then I decided to take an email break, and the first email I opened was from Diane of Big Green Purse demanding that I remove my header image because it violates her trademark of green purses. Up until this point, Diane is someone I had respected, but her email left a vile taste in my mouth. The image in question is a photograph of one of those glorious how-could-I-be-so-lucky thrift store finds: a green purse for a green blogger who writes about shopping.
Although many un-Christian thoughts passed through my mind this morning, I eventually concluded that (a) Diane probably did have the legal upperhand here and (b) I didn't have the means or the mean-spiritedness to fight it. But when I thought about removing an image that my husband and I had spent hours designing, and when I thought of the future hours that would need to go into creating an new header image, I felt completely overwhelmed.
And those overwhelming thoughts let to more thoughts: About how much time I've spent blogging and how little difference it has made. About how the culmination of all this knowledge-gaining has just given me more reasons to worry and more reasons to be depressed. How dipping my toe into activism has shown me just how exhausting it can be with so little result to show for it. And how after nearly two years of blogging, I've greened my life and met some fabulous people, but I've also been chewed out and criticized and insulted. And to what end?
Finally I knew it was time to face the cloudy thought that has been lingering in the back of my mind for awhile now: Why am I blogging?
Is it because I think that through blogging about green living I can make the world better? At one time I did, but now...the world is so big and I am only one person, and maybe my time would be better spent away from the computer and out in my own community.
Is it because I want to make money from my blog? I've considered trying and dabbled a little bit with the whole Reuseit Ambassador thing, but I have trouble reconciling the non-consumption philosophy behind my blog with the "support my sponsors" message. And truthfully I don't have the competitiveness or ruthlessness it takes to be an entrepreneur.
So why do I blog? When I first started, I had just moved to a new city, and I needed the connectedness, the feeling that I wasn't alone in the world. I still love that about blogging, but I don't think I need it anymore. I also love blogging for the cathartic-ness of it, but I'm not sure that makes up for the emotional downsides. And I love the writing, but maybe it's time to find other outlets for my words.
When I've complained before about people being mean on the Internet, my husband comments, "That's true, so if you're really serious about being a blogger, you need to develop a thicker skin." Well, I don't think I can or want to. And if I quit blogging and go back to my normal life, I might actually get some projects done around here that have been sitting on a shelf for two years, and I might be able to enjoy a morning outdoors with my children without it being spoiled by people I don't even know and events I have no control over.
So after all these thoughts, the conclusion I've come to is that I need a break. I'm going to take a week off to think about some things, and see where it takes me.
