Does my blog matter?

It seems like I’m always a little late to join the party. Whatever that “party” is, I’ll often find myself head tilted, eyes bewildered, and left hand sprawled against my chest in Miss J form like, no one told me this was going on! 

One of my childhood nicknames, appointed by my dad, is ‘Slow Poke’ because of my tendency to take ‘my sweet precious time’ (daddy’s words) to do something. So my tardiness is apparently congenital and I guess that has spilled over into even things like setting up an Instagram feed and starting a lifestyle blog. Both of which I’ve done only in the last 2-3 years (which is the underlying point of this post). I wouldn’t even think twice about this except that over the past year or so as I continue to learn a little bit more about this blogosphere I’ve heard more than a discouraging time or two that I’ve missed the heyday of blogging. I’m apparently a decade late with starting MeMe She, which is crazy because if I think back to about 2009 through 2011ish I don’t even recall knowing or hearing much about blogging, like no one told me this was going on!

At that time period, I was spending most of my time between U of D (University of Detroit) Mercy’s campus, engrossed in my Master’s classes, and the 8th floor of Karmanos Cancer hospital, so I could pay for those classes (and all of the gas I was burning from commuting). Blogs and social media were not on my radar.

But then I came up with the idea of MeMe She, my lifestyle journey, and I pushed the launch button on January seventh two thousand eighteen at around seven pm. I still did not know the massiveness of the blogosphere at this time which is probably a good thing because maybe I would have been completely deterred. My first year, I felt pretty decent about my ‘stats’ something like over three thousand visitors from over forty countries was pretty good I thought. And then as I begin to look at ways to improve and grow my blog, I learned more and more of exactly where I stood in the scheme of ‘things.’ Side note: I’ve since stopped paying as much attention to my ‘stats’.

There are a lot of blogs. Many of which I have noticed are not so consistently active through their site anymore. Many seemingly more invested in influencing on Instagram. Which IG is a whole other can of dubious worms for me (I’ll get to that in a minute). As I moved past my first year blogiversary and was continuing to leisurely learn the ‘way of the blog world,’ it all for me still boiled down to MeMe She just being a creative outlet of journeying for me. I was proud of what I was building. A place I could keep my highlighted thoughts and favorite things organized, or as Brian often reminded me “something that is supposed to be fun.” I still had no plans of monetizing it, making it my new career, or shifting to “Influencer.” My goal was simple: inspiration, resourcefulness, and beauty for the next sister.

Something pretty interesting happened some several months into this year. I unintentionally (almost surprisingly) became largely disinterested with social media. I realized that it was a great space for exposure and connecting to other inspiring individuals but it also could be fickle, disingenuous, and draining (copy cats, petty folks, those insane individuals who gawk your every post and stalk all of your stories but make note not to acknowledge any of you, and just the crazies, you know all of the people and things that make you roll your eyes to oblivion). I found myself bored with it all even. Scrolling my feed for some seconds and then moving on to other things. I was becoming ambivalent about sharing or indulging in it. I remember saying to Brian, “I mean I don’t even think you can have a blog without social media these days, can you?” I decided to push through my haze at times and remain active on social media as much as my tolerance would allow… And so that’s a little of that on that part of things.

So earlier this week (or last week) I came across an interesting article (through someone’s IG stories actually) talking about all of this. About blogs being relics of the past and the final few that are still worth reading. Of course this made me think for a second. Does my blog matter? I mean am I wasting my time with keeping this space pruned? Should I just go back to my private journaling and call it a day? You know, log off of IG, Fb, Twitter, and Pinterest indefinitely and find solace in simpler living, off display.

But then I also had to ask myself if this thinking was at odds with my main goal. It’s kind of like when I find myself on the brink of depleting weariness from being a nurse and then I get some revitalizing, warm and fuzzy letter from a patient on how I changed the world for them. There is great satisfaction in that. It’s the wave that you ride until the next uplifting wave.

Anyway, no worries, MeMe She is not going anywhere for now. I still have things to work out before the end of the year like, why I love daybeds and should I try wallpaper in my foyer bathroom? I still want to clarify what hospice means for your loved ones and share this great chicken tender recipe I tried a while ago when the Neelys were still together. I have to express all of the emotions from my first night away from Ash last month and show why I want to buy everything from Fleur du Mal. I have another “Every Woman” post loading soon. I still have ideas to work out of my imagination. But this thought of “does my blog matter” is definitely a highlighted brainwave I needed to capture in this space. Tell me your thoughts. What do you think about the blogosphere right now? What do you think about this blog? Instagram influencing? Any of it?

Xo.

Photo credit: Timothy Blanks