I’ve been blogging and sharing my life publicly for 7 years now. In 2013, blogging was a way to have community and make friends and maybe make a little money if your audience was big enough. Social media was still a place to connect with people you knew in real life. Facebook wasn’t monetized yet and instagram was purely a photosharing app. You edited your pics in the app (because there weren’t photo editing apps yet and you couldn’t take a pic and upload it from your camera roll until 2015, I think!), you only had a few characters to write, and your username could only be 9 or 10 characters long. There were no influencers, no social media culture, and very little competition. It was a mom bloggers world, and some were cooler than others, but mostly, it was a friendly place to feel seen and understood in a world becoming increasingly disconnected. For me, it was just a place to share my thoughts and my family.
When instagram increased their caption character limit, it became a place to “micro blog” and that’s where I’ve found my stride. Being forced to communicate multi faceted, complex ideas and thoughts in 2,200 characters or less has challenged both my writing and my communication skills. For the better! And thank God for insta stories, right? For further clarifying points you can’t expound on in the caption. Anyway.
For 4 years, I’ve been micro blogging thoughts and ideas and I kind of miss writing these longer pieces, but also, kind of don’t want to be a “blogger” again. Now blogs are professional and clean and sponsored and it just doesn’t feel like a space I want to be in anymore. I tried for a few weeks last fall, but got a few posts in and was already experiencing super negative and combative situations because of the things I was writing, and I’m just over it. It gets really tiring and discouraging.
So what’s the difference between blogging on my website and blogging here, on a substack? Honestly, probably nothing. It just feels safer, more homey. Even though I very much know it’s a part of the same internet my blog is/was a part of, it feels removed from it and it’s a lot easier to write on here than on my very official website. There are no ads, but if I do want to monetize it and make a little income, you can be a paid subscriber for a few bucks a month and I’ll write a few extra things that only subscribers can see. I like that. Feels like more ownership and freedom and getting paid for a skill and less like playing a game where there are no winners except the ad companies that pay you to shill their products ….
ANYWAY.
This is where you can come to read the longer things I write and the secret things I write and share, if you want to be a part of that too. This will also be where I share longer updates of our RV life and travels and where we’re going and what we’re seeing and all the cool things God is doing in our lives and around the country. SUPER excited to start talking about that more!!
So hey. Thanks for being a part of my world and for reading this and reading the other things I’ve written or will write. And also - thanks for being patient as I’ve tried to figure out where I fit in this online world. It’s always felt like a shoe that’s just a little too tight. I’ll probably always feel like I don’t quite fit, but I’m here anyway. Thanks for being here too!
here’s our crew with our new home!
