Seven years ago today — on December 21, 2009 — I published my first blog post and Leah’s Thoughts was born. Many call this day the blog-o-versary. I like to think of it as the day I began writing my own story.
In many ways, I’ve devoted my life to telling stories. When I was in elementary school, I wrote creative stories. In the third grade, my teacher said I wrote the best three-page story about a girl who didn’t like Christmas. In middle school, I wrote and published my own newsletter that I sent to pen pals and people across the country.
In high school, I discovered journalism and knew I was meant to writer stories professionally. I joined the school newspaper and loved every minute I spent in that class from my sophomore to senior year.
I was a journalism major at San Diego State University, and found myself writing for The Daily Aztec newspaper. And when I graduated, I started work at a publicity assistant at KPBS where I worked helped tell stories for the San Diego public TV/radio station. From there I went on and did several other jobs, all having a writing component attached to them — whether it was writing about San Diego State in hopes of recruiting prospective students or ghostwriting speeches for the university presidents. Writing never left my blood.
But in late 2009, something changed. I started to realize there was a story I was not telling — my own. I’ve been writing for others for so long, I wanted to share my own experiences as a mother to a 2-year-old daughter, not knowing what the heck I was doing as a parent.
So I started writing. I wrote about how I hated to sunscreen Sophie to go to the park (that feeling has since passed). I wrote about my love of bookstores, my decision to only have one child, all of Sophie’s first days of school, and my struggles with motherhood.
I wrote about the loss of my beloved dog and cat, leaving my secure full-time, state job to start my own freelance writing business and be my own boss, moving my life across the country, and so much more.
In the past seven years, I’ve published 524 blog posts. So many stories, feelings, rants, thoughts, recipes, book reviews … I chronicled it all here on my blog.
The world of blogging has changed considerably since I started this site seven years ago (my commentary on that subject is a post I’m saving for another day). So many bloggers talk about getting their pageviews and readers to the “perfect” number, or playing chicken with social media followers to get the attention of brands and PR reps. Many want to get paid for sponsored content. And I’ve read bloggers who go on-again-off-again with wanting to quit blogging (to which I always think, “I want to quit the gym!”).
Writing my blog has always been — and will always be — about telling my story. I have never cared about pageviews and statistics. I care about the words and stories I tell, and that they are honest, real truth.
I don’t write what society wants to read. I write for myself to have a chronicle of where life has taken me. And I’m still humbled and grateful to the people who read my words. I may not write as much as I used to, but as long as I have words to write and things to say, I’ll keep writing them here on my blog.
I know some of you have been reading here since the beginning. And to those of you, thank you! And to new readers and people who have joined me along the way, I am thankful you stop by from time to time.
Here’s to the past seven years … and to the future, whatever stories are told.
The post Seven Years of Telling My Story. Seven Years of Leah’s Thoughts. appeared first on Leah's Thoughts.
