On December 21, 2009, I published my first post on my Leah’s Thoughts blog. I had no idea what would become of my little WordPress blog, on my tiny corner of the internet. All I remember feeling at that time was restless and that I had things to say … about me, motherhood, marriage, books, music, cooking, and my life as a working woman. And while writing was a big part of every job I had, at that time I didn’t feel that I was a true “writer.”
Let me backup a bit. … I was trained as a journalist. Journalists and writers wrote articles and stories about other people. I was a journalism major back when you failed an assignment if you made one grammatical error in newspaper reporting class. Back then, writing about yourself and sharing your opinion was grounds for termination; unless you were assigned to an editorial or on the op-ed page.
In the mid-2000s, blogging started to gain popularity, especially within a growing sector of moms who shared the daily happenings of their lives. When blogging was in its heyday, nearly every blog had the title of mom or mommy in it. Hence the “mommy blogger” movement.
When it came time for me to name my blog, I knew it would NOT contain the term mom and I refused to be labeled a “mommy blogger.” I called my blog Leah’s Thoughts. Because that’s who I was and who I still am — Leah. Being a mom has only ever been one piece of my identity. And while I did write plenty about motherhood and my struggles and triumphs with Sophie, I did not want my writing to be defined by my role as a mom.
During the first few years of Leah’s Thoughts, I wrote so many posts! It was like a dam opened and my thoughts came flooding out. In July 2010, I published a post called “Bye Bye, Baby (Monitor)” about the milestone of permanently putting away Sophie’s baby monitors. That post was “Freshly Pressed” on the WordPress homepage (the equivalent of “going viral” in those days). That day turned the corner for me and my blog because it was when people beyond my immediately friends and family found my blog. And also how I discovered so many other bloggers to follow. It was one of the most exciting thing that happened to me (at that point in my life).
In August 2011, BlogHer — the premiere event for all bloggers — came to San Diego. For reasons I cannot recall today, I did not attend BlogHer. However, I attended a small, one-day blogging conference organized by a woman named Lindsay Maines that took place the day before BlogHer. That event was called Women Create Media and it changed my life and how I would write and share my blog content. Brené Brown delivered a keynote to us, before anyone knew about “daring greatly” and vulnerability. I met fellow bloggers that I’m still connected with today.
Over the next several years, blogging (especially “mommy blogging”) began to change. I could not stop hearing Philip Seymour Hoffman’s Lester Bangs (“Almost Famous”) in my head:
“They will ruin rock and roll and strangle everything we love about it.”
And that’s exactly what happened in the blogging world. Blogging became all about making money, and less about sharing lives. I certainly understand the drive to earn money. But the problem was it took the authenticity, the realness, out of blogging. Suddenly people weren’t sharing personal stories about how hard it was to parent. It was all about advertising, affiliate links and sponsored posts. It was less about compelling narratives and more about clicks and pageviews; especially when Facebook and Twitter started taking off.
I want to be clear: not every blogger went the route of monetization. There were many people out there who stuck to writing their own stories, including me. And while I did go to plenty of free events for bloggers, perhaps it was the journalist in me that resisted sponsored content and never allowed advertising on Leah’s Thoughts. My blog would only ever contain my authentic voice and words.
*****
Over these 15 years, I’ve kept Leah’s Thoughts alive, even though my long-form publishing on it dwindled. Not because I stopped writing and sharing. On the contrary, I was writing and sharing SO MUCH content — but it was as “micro-blogs,” or posts on Instagram. I was still writing Leah’s Thoughts — it just wasn’t on the blog!
Not long ago, I went back and looked at all the longer, narrative Instagram content I’ve published (really since 2019) and was shocked at how much I wrote! My content in 2020 was especially telling to me; looking back, I truly believe that writing and sharing was the main thing that helped get me through that very difficult year.
I was equally shocked that so much of who I am now — and all my significant milestones — were not on my actual blog. I had not written anything about losing all three of my pets (but I’d written plenty about them coming into my life). There was nothing about the runner I’ve become or how I’ve embraced yoga. I hadn’t written anything about teaching college writing or coaching cross country and track. Or what life is like as a single mother to a teenager.
So, I embarked on a pretty big project these last several months — I took all my significant Instagram writing posts and put them on my blog. I did not replicate every single post. I focused on milestones and longer content. I did this because I wanted my stories and my life on my blog that I own. I plan to continue “blogging” on Instagram; and replicating those posts on Leah’s Thoughts.
So much has changed for me in the 15 years I started this blog. But one thing has remained steady — I will always write. And as long as I’m still here, Leah’s Thoughts will be, too.
If you’re new to this blog (or to my life), you can find all my blog posts in chronological order on this blog page. At the bottom of the page is a “Blog Archives by Date” menu that contains everything I’ve written since day one.