Sharing

So what, exactly, is the point of a public blog if I’m prone to oversharing? Seems a bit counter intuitive and risky. No?

Being a writer has always been my form of expression. Some people draw. Others play piano. I find therapy in words. Maybe it’s seeing my thoughts in black and white that allows me to seek to interpret the grey.

Maybe it feeds my need for commiseration and validation.

Maybe, especially in these pandemic times, it makes me feel connected to people when I am otherwise so disconnected from life outside the front door of my house.

Sharing is a double edged sword. It grants power to people that can be used to hurt me. And it has. Many times over.

But I also know that nothing that has happened to me or that I feel is particularly unique. I am not the only person who has struggled with colicky kids, neuro complex kids, loss, separation, etc. etc. etc. These things could be unique among my particular peer group but universally, someone out there is going through what I am. Someone out there can feel not so alone hearing about what I’m thinking about or dealing with.

Someone out there can commiserate.

At 40, I’ve realized that I am truly not ever really alone. Someone else out there can share insight on what I’m going through.

It’s why I started blogging in the first place. I felt so alone when I was struggling with my colicky baby. I wrote about it and it turned out, many people failed to bond with their babies. Many people struggled with babies they could not calm. Many people needed advice, support and to know they were not alone.

In so sharing, I felt less alone. I felt like there was a community of people out there just like me who made me feel less crazy, less unique and less alone.

It’s a reciprocal thing. I give, but I get something out of it, too.

So I share some things, many things, that are private or sources of fear or shame for whatever reason.

How could I have known that other moms struggled with attachment to their babies if I didn’t share I had?

Sharing becomes a source of empowerment. I know I’m not alone. No matter how happy, sad, confused, inspired, empowered, emboldened, inspired I am by what I’m dealing with, someone else has felt similarly – maybe for different reasons, maybe for the same reasons.

And when I share, it divides the load I carried alone – the joy, the sad – all of it.

For me, sharing is caring, about myself and the people who are invested enough to care about what I have to say. Maybe they’ll see themselves. Maybe they’ll see me.

Maybe they’ll see a side of things they never considered before.

That’s why I share.