Winds of change - a letter to my readers

*via Beverly & Pack

Dear readers of my blog,

This is, indeed a long letter. And I hope you'll read the whole dang thing. But if the implications of the picture above cause you to skip down first, please pop back up and read the whole dang thing later. ;-)

I was thinking recently about what it's like to follow a blogger who goes through a life change. It might be that I initially bonded with a blog over fun fashions or book reviews or naughty desserts or a sense of humor, and then... and then... something in their life changes. They lose their sense of humor. They decide to go gluten and sugar-free and drink only green smoothies. They decide to go minimalist or stop shaving. They decide to take their blog in a whole new direction. Maybe it's something circumstantial -they're having a baby or getting married or divorced or starting a new business.

Sometimes I feel a sense of excitement, wondering what new chapters this will reveal. Other times I feel a sense of loss, the blog I loved has changed. With some bloggers I'm so attached to their voice, that I stay through the change. With others, I find, that as my life moment and interests do not align, the bond begins to fade. It's funny how this happens. It happens IRL (in real life) relationships too. At times in the past I've felt angry about it - like "why did this person have to go and change their life and now we're going to drift apart!" I've also felt guilty about it, for letting circumstances change things.

But there are things I've come to see about relationships - women's in particular. We're a bit like cows -- herding together, wanting to be around other women exactly like us or in the same phase of life --  the same age, both young marrieds or young mothers or old mothers, or vegans or divorcees or whatnot. And with this mentality, other possibilities for deeper connections beyond surface commonality are often missed.

And yet, there is something to those shared phases. When we are planning a wedding, we long to talk cakes and flowers. When we are having a baby, we want to compare notes on nausea and nurseries. These things are natural too and perhaps we shouldn't feel so guilty at our own nature, our own need to be immersed in the moment.

So I've come to see that not all friendships (or blogships) are "forevah, forevah, evah" to quote the song Sorry Miss Jackson. Some are temporary, circumstantial, passing through, good while they lasted. And I think sometimes that's okay. We are not obliged to stay the same and neither is anyone else. But neither do circumstances have to be the dividing line of friendships. Some friendships transcend change.

These are all things I was mulling on, only days before I was shocked, shocked I tell you, to have a positive pregnancy test a little over two months ago and realize I was facing a significant change of my own.

Yes. This is it. I am pregnito. That's a little bit pregnant, for those of you not up with the slang. (I am not however, pregnant with twins as the above photo might seem to indicate.) And hopefully being pregnito may explain to you my disappearances and awkwardness on this blog. I wasn't ready to share the news yet and I found myself often unable to say what was most on my mind.

So, talk about change. Change in so many ways --  to have my heart and my mind suddenly change directions, to have this new thing step in and demand space and attention and other things take the back seat.

I have no doubt this change will make itself manifest on my little online playground otherwise known as a blog. At this moment I have no plans to start reviewing nursing bras or debating the Bradley method or whatnot, but I am unsure what this will mean. I'm a bit afraid to lose myself in motherhood (but that is a topic for another post and another day) and I want to stay, fully and richly, myself: the philosopher, the dreamer (and the writer too). And yet motherhood seems to demand a full surrender (haha). And as this is part of my life experience going forward, it will be part of my life here too.

As someone who has long desired motherhood, on my blog I've written (at times very obliquely) about my experience with what I call maybe motherhood - the in between, the unknown, the waiting, the possibility for disappointment.So  I'm sensitive in this area and I share my news with mixed feelings.

I am joyful and grateful, but even as I experience my own joy, I know not every woman experiences this. I can't explain or justify why I've received this blessing, just like I can't explain or justify so many other experiences of good and bad in the world. But there are things I do know. I know how wonderful all the women are I've known - wonderful women in and of themselves, regardless of reproductive status!

If you're in the "maybe motherhood", or even "definitely not motherhood" -- know that I care about you, that I see and acknowledge your experience, your reality, your heart, your struggle, your validity as a worthy, amazing human being. And you're not alone out there! There are many women from many walks of life - some of them mothers - with empathetic hearts and deep, wise souls - who know what it's like to sorrow, struggle, or have a life that strays off the "normal" well-beaten path. We are always less alone than we think.

Most of all, the message I want to convey is that I believe in you, and all of us ladies -- in our ability to live life to the fullest, to not squander the gift of life that's been given to us, to create and enjoy an intensely beautiful, good life no matter what may happen.

And so a new chapter begins. I hope that those of you who enjoy reading me for my voice, my essence, will stick around to see what happens! Even if I do starting writing about baby blankets, chubby cheeks or whatnot.

Yours truly,
Valerie