Sleepless Nights

Author: Veronica

  • What defines a mummyblogger?

    I’m struggling with identity.

    Am I a mummyblogger? Am I a personal blogger? Does a title really even matter, if what I’m doing makes me happy?

    I’m not sure where to go from here. I’m very aware of how my words are perceived and how that reflects on me. Of course, like all good identity crises, this was helped along by some family drama IRL that has left me wondering what exactly I said to cause such offence.

    There was a report released a few months ago, that stated mummybloggers were on the rise. Of course, they classified any woman who blogs, who also has children, as a mummyblogger.

    I don’t agree with that – not every woman who has children, who also blogs, is a mummyblogger. Some write about tech, or blogging, or money making and the fact that they also have children is unrelated to their blog content.

    I’m struggling with this. Motherhood is wonderful and lovely and etc etc. But it’s not all that I am, nor does it define everything that I write about.

    More than that though, what defines a mummyblogger? With a mummyblogger conference announced, how do you decide if that is the right title for you and whether or not you’re comfortable with that moniker?

    So I’m curious, what defines mummyblogging for you? What do mummybloggers do that makes them mummybloggers, rather than personal bloggers, or something else?

    ***

    Also, if you feel that you can’t be truly honest because you’re worried about upsetting someone, then feel free to be anonymous – HOWEVER, I’d prefer you left a real email address, so that you can see my replies to you. I WILL NOT share your email address with anyone.

  • No, I don’t feel like dancing. Or dislocating my hips. Thanks anyway.

    Sometimes I attend events and there is dancing and people look at me strangely when I determinedly don’t dance. I could be coy and declare that I am a terrible dancer and oh no, I couldn’t possibly…

    I would be lying, because as far as I’m concerned, I can dance and dance well. I just shouldn’t.

    It might be easier to go down the coy route, because declaring that I don’t dance, well, it requires some explanation from me. How much of an explanation depends on how much of my blog you’ve read – or my twitter stream and how well I know you. I might just leave it at that and damned if you think I’m rude, or weird.

    Or I could brush you off with an explanation like I have bad joints.

    But unless you’re very close family, or a friend I love, I’m not going to go into it. Actually, even if you’re very close family, I’m not going to go into it.

    Invisible disabilities don’t lend themselves to being explained easily. When you add in genetic and rare, then easy explanations disappear almost entirely.

    I had a panic attack before I flew last weekend. Not because I was terrified of flying, but because I was terrified of being stuck in a tiny space, with my knee bent and having it dislocate. Of course, I’d been sensible enough to brace it before flying, but that terror of knowing that your bones don’t stay where they’re put, that doesn’t go away.

    I made it to Sydney with nothing worse than aching hips and a few dislocated ribs, but I kept the brace on anyway.

    By that night, I had an angry black bruise around the back of my knee, but it was a small price to pay for no major dislocations.

    When the dancing started on Saturday night, I smiled politely, shook my head and sat down to watch. Of course, I would have loved to dance, because I do love dancing, but I don’t love dislocated hips and I’m eternally sensible. I was already wearing heels, surely that’s enough danger for one night?

    By dessert, all my ribs down one side had dislocated and I had been sitting for so long and was so exhausted that I was close to vomiting. I’d been feeling sick all weekend, but forcing myself to eat a few green beans, some fish and half a cannelloni had taxed my already upset system and it was more than I could take. I called it a night and headed up to my room to relocate all my ribs and lay down, with my feet in the air, in an attempt to stabilise my blood pressure.

    45 minutes later, I’d removed my stockings (extra supportive, for the holding together of my pelvis) and replaced my heels with sensible flats. I went back downstairs, to at least get to talk to some of my friends.

    I think I made it another 20 minutes before my ribs all fell back out and the simple act of movement was feeling more like walking on a pitching ship, than walking down a hallway.

    But no one saw that, because Ehlers Danlos is an invisible disability. No one saw me relocate my wrist half a dozen times in a 30 minute period, or put my thumb back into joint and continue writing my tweet, or wiggle my ankle back into the spot it was meant to be in. And that’s good, because being a freakshow is not something I aspire to. Watch the girl bend in places a person shouldn’t! See her skin stretch and hear the crunch of bones! Roll up, roll up!

    I would have liked to dance, but more so, I like my hips staying in the sockets that were designed for them too.

    After all, no one looks good on the dance floor when writhing around and screaming in pain.

  • Still Decompressing – Link Share #ausblogcon2011

    I’ve been home for a few days now and I’m still decompressing from the conference. I’ve had a quick glance over the business cards I collected and know most of the women and read them already.

    The excitement of the conference has blended into a giant blur of beautiful faces and excellent conversation and I can’t quite work out who I spoke to – I can remember your faces and real names, but I’ll be damned if I can remember the blog addresses that go with them! I had so  much fun speaking to everyone, it’s been a while since I was thrown in with a crowd quite that welcoming and you were all so very lovely.

    So this is just a quick post so that I can ask you for a favour.

    If I spoke to you this weekend and you didn’t get a chance to give me your business card, would you like to leave your link in the comments? And if you missed speaking to me – I tried really hard to talk to as many people as I could, but sadly, I’m not superwoman- then would you like to leave your link?

    I would love to visit as many of your blogs as possible and I know that my business card pile isn’t as large as I hoped it would be, so I thought I would offer up a place to share your blog address with me, that I can come back to over the next few weeks.

    And if, for whatever reason, you weren’t at AusBlogCon, then I would still love for you to link yourself up.

    Let’s call it almost an unofficial delurking day.

    So go on, fess up? What’s your blog?

     

  • Aussie Bloggers Conference 2011 – how it all went down.

    It felt quite surreal as I actually got on a plane on Friday morning and then suffered through the flight to get to Sydney. Watershedd collected Mum and I from the airport and I was so grateful, as after that flight I don’t think I would have coped well on a shuttle bus.

    Saturday I woke up a bit before 5am and played around on twitter while I waited for Mum to wake up and talk me down off my ledge. I was freaking out a leeeetle bit as we got ready and headed down for breakfast, so as to be ready for registration on time.

    Can I just quickly thank my amazing meet and greet team? You guys were amazing and you made the difference for me, between the morning being fun, or it being tear your hair out stressful. These amazing women volunteered to help man the registration tables, hand out swag bags and name tags and show people to their tables, as well as being just genuinely welcoming faces to all the nervous attendees. We couldn’t have pulled it off as easily as we did without them. I’d gotten a few panicked texts from members of the team who were running late (trains not running, sick children – usual stuff) and they were more worried about letting me down than possibly not making it in for the first session.

    So, thankyou. You guys were amazing.

    Everything flowed smoothly and went beautifully and I got to meet so many amazing people that I am still buzzing.

    I moderated the “My Blog, My Story” panel and I would just like to thank the women who spoke.

    Tiff from My Three Ring Circus

    Kelley from Magnetoboldtoo

    Karen from Miscellaneous Mum

    Kim from Frogpondsrock

    Carly from Tune Into Radio Carly

    and Lori, from Random Ramblings of a SAHM.

    These women made the room laugh and cry and their stories were so powerful. If you’re not reading them, I really think that you should be. It was a pleasure moderating for them, even if all I did was introduce them and hug them once they were done.

    I learned a lot, met even more people and came away knowing that this blogosphere? It’s a bloody good place to play and work in. I cannot wait until we start organising 2012, after the success of this one. Melbourne is the idea, as the survey we asked you all to fill out in the beginning had Sydney first, then Melbourne next. Sharing the love around.

    I had so much fun, thank you for all the support in the leadup and the reminders that I would be okay.

    Oh and the keynote speech that I was meant to be reading, but was told I wasn’t able to because we were apparently running overtime? You can find it here. It’s one of my favourite pieces of writing.

    And now, I leave you with photos because I appear to have picked up some kind of bug and I was awake throwing up all night. ALLLLL night. Fun times, fun times.

    Can I just thank my fellow organisers who helped to make this thing reality. Nic, Karen, Tina and Brenda. It’s was awesome fun, didn’t we do a great job?

  • Not having fun

    I wrote a post for a PR company the other day, as part of a new website launch and three sentences in, I realised that I was having fun. I couldn’t, for the life of me, manage to be sensible, and so I wrote the post tongue in cheek and deeply satirical and then sent it off into the ether, hoping that the company would ‘get’ it and still want to use the post.

    What the hell I thought, if it’s not suitable, I’ll be serious and use the first attempt as a post for Sleepless Nights. Win|win.

    A week and some follow up emails later, I was told my post was great and it would be used, which is fantastic, but I’d also hoped to share it here, because that’s how much I enjoyed being silly. The post isn’t live on the site yet, so I can’t link to it, but it made me realise, I haven’t been having fun.

    I’m unhappy. Sure, good things are happening and I’m enjoying them – I really enjoyed the ABC International Women’s Day event I attended and I’m really looking forward to getting married and I’ve loved organising the Aus Blog Con … but I’m not happy, in myself.

    I had a conversation with Paul Smart during the opening of MONA about the importance of having fun. I agreed with him in theory, but also, while we were racing around the museum and having the best time, I realised how rare my having fun had become. Yes, I enjoyed things, but being silly? Having fun? I’d lost a lot of that. MONA FOMA made me realise how much I missed myself, the bent sense of humour and the darkly funny and the loving life. Doctors appointments leave no room for satire, or jokes.

    Life has been feeling like an endless grind of meltdowns and shitty nappies and being urinated on and stuff breaking and things falling apart and appointments and screaming and stress and really, where is my fun?

    Nan died almost two years ago and it doesn’t feel like that long, not when I’m missing her so much it hurts. It feels like a heartbeat and yet, at the same time, surely I’ve been living this way forever?

    I think grief sucks the fun out of life, really fast. Autism and a falling down house help, but the grief feels like a giant weight that sits, between my shoulders, making everything that bit more difficult.

    Nan died and then my hot water cylinder exploded and then my car died on the day of her funeral, at the fucking funeral home and there was a giant falling out with family and thousands of dollars worth of plumbing bills and then a baby who was having trouble feeding and a seizure and Ehlers Danlos and then Aspergers for Amy and then total social withdrawal from Isaac. Not to mention the two dogs killed within a few months and then just everything.

    Sometimes life is too much and surviving is all you can think about. It will get better, or it will be fine, become mantras and suddenly, it’s years later and you’ve been surviving, just, for so long, that you can’t remember when you last thought about how crappy it all feels now.

    I’ve gotten so used to things going wrong, that I don’t even tell people when things are meant to be happening, because surely, it’s all going to go to shit before then anyway.

    I’m going away this weekend, to Sydney, for the Aus Blog Con. I’m going to sleep in a hotel room without anyone screaming at me, and I am going to breathe deep and photograph everything. I am going to laugh, as much as I can, as often as I can.

    I am going to be silly and stupid and I am not going to care what people think. I am going to hug the group of women who have held my hand through tough times and I am going to eat with them and laugh and be myself and trust that they’ll like me anyway. I’m sure they will. I am going to meet new people and make new friends.

    I’m going to have fun, despite everything else, because fun makes everything easier.

    When I come home, I am going to spend four days quietly freaking out, because you guys? I am giving a talk to post-graduate media students at the UTAS on Friday the 25th, on blogging and new media and what I do all day and then I’m going to have coffee with the senior lecturer about something that might end up being a Very Big Deal, or it might not end up happening. I am trusting that telling about it won’t jinx it.

    And I am going to have FUN. And you’re going to have fun with me, because there is not enough fun lately.