When I started Budding Smiles nearly 5 years ago, it was a diary. A diary of pregnancy and love and life and motherhood. I started just at the point when ‘Mummy Bloggers’ were becoming quite a thing, with the number of such blogs shooting through the roof in recent years.
Somewhere in the chaos, I lost my way. I lost my purpose and my passion, my reasons for starting a blog.
It was never for the reviews or the sponsored posts, but purely for the words. It was to record our family as it blossomed and grew, to ensure that the special moments and adventures weren’t lost as the years passed and memories faded.
At the time of writing my first ever blog post, my Nan was going into a residential care home because of her Alzheimer’s becoming too advanced for her to stay at home. Nan passed away in March of this year with myself, Grandad, Mum, my aunt, and my uncle by her side. That has changed me, there’s no doubt about that; the most traumatic, impossible, heartbreaking time, happening during what has been a tough year from the very first month.
I recently had the chance to read words my Nan had written in her diary on the day my Mum was born. I could hear her voice as I read those words, and they overflowed with love for her new daughter, her young son, and her husband. I wiped away my tears and later I read Toby’s birth story and then Martha’s – my 21st century versions of Nan’s diary entries.
I’ve never been disingenuous on this blog, that I can say hand on heart. I’ve had wonderful opportunities which I am so grateful for; reviewed some amazing products and places, made lifelong friends, been inspired by passionate writers and speakers, met some lovely famous types. I’ll never regret any of that! But I’ve also chased sponsored posts in order to validate myself as a blogger and prove that I could earn a living despite my PND-addled assertions that I was a failure in so many aspects of my life.
I’ve never written anything I didn’t believe, never taken on work for companies that conflict with my morals, never lied. But in this space which was created to forever capture and hold the story of our family, I have posted stuff I’ve not cared about in order to make a few quid. Don’t get me wrong, I’ve also had the absolute joy of writing posts from the core of my being, while being paid to do so. I guess the balance just started tipping the wrong way and I fell wholly out of love with it all.
I’ve not felt like a fully fledged member of the blogging community for quite some time now, and leaving Facebook groups which weren’t actually adding value to my life really highlighted that fact. It’s not that I don’t have great friends from blogging, or that I don’t have huge admiration and respect for several bloggers. Those I admire the most range from the bigger names in the biz to ‘smaller’ bloggers but whose words and photography resonate with me.
I have been proud to have helped genuine readers through my coverage of mental health, silent reflux, and the such. If anyone comes to my blog I want it to be because they care about something I’ve written, not because were part of a ‘tribe’ or a like-for-like rings. That stuff doesn’t sit well with me.
So to come full circle; if I publish posts moving forward, they will be from the heart. The highs and the lows, the milestones, the dreams, the businesses, the adventures. If I continue with Budding Smiles then it will be as a legacy book for my babies and my future grand babies, not for clicks and views.
For now, I’m ending 2018 with my family and as the bell strikes midnight I won’t draw a line under this fairly crappy year, because processing what we’ve been through and the related feelings is an ongoing thing. But I will wave goodbye to the year that has thrown depression and anxiety, grief, financial worries, autism/PDA assessments, and more at us.
I will turn to face 2019 feeling more secure in the decisions I’m making, knowing that like my Nan did in her diary, the words I leave behind may never be worth money, but will be priceless for my family.
Leslie 31st December 2018 at 4:20 pm
What a beautiful post! How absolutely lovely to have been able to read your nans diary, I can’t even begin to imagine how that felt. I know we’ll keep in touch and still be friends, of course we will but it’s strange to think that my first and best blogging friend is ‘no longer a blogger’
Don’t be a stranger. All the best for 2019, love you xxxxxxx
Sam 31st December 2018 at 5:33 pm
Hannah this is such a beautiful well written post. I think you are making the right decision for you. As Leslie says you were also one of my first blogging friends that turned out be a small world. I’ve gained a lot from you. Your strength with mental health has helped me with my own depression and you are a fierce strong lady I’m proud to call a friend and oook up too. I wish you all the love and success with your businesses in 2019 xx
Emma Lander 31st December 2018 at 8:18 pm
Oh I totally resonate with what you have said. I’m so sorry you’ve had such a tough tome this year but I am really looking forward to reading your new posts.
Happy new year x
Amanda 1st January 2019 at 11:06 pm
Ah Hannah, first of all *hugs* for surviving such a tough year.
And secondly, I hear you on how hard it can be to keep your blog space as a diary as the blogging world has developed over the years. I started blogging back in 2006, when it wasn’t really much more than a few online diaries. But that rapidly changed, and it’s so easy to be swept away in the momentum and think that you should be doing more. This is especially true if you attend blogging events and/or are members of online blogging groups. Not because others push you, but you just end up surrounded by many who want to take those routes, and you think you should follow somehow.
I think that if you want blogging to be a diary, then you need to take those breaks when it gets too confusing or complicated. Then you can find your balance again. For some that involves renewing their blogging, for others it means using something like Instagram as a mini-blog of sorts, and for others still it means simply letting it all slide. Whatever if right for you at any moment, I hope that you can find the way to make it enjoyable for you.
Take care as you move into 2019 xx
Tim 2nd January 2019 at 12:12 pm
I can empathise completely with what you are saying. It’s inevitable that the death of people close to you will have a profound and lasting impact. Over the past couple of years we have lost Heather’s mum and I have seen friends and work colleagues – some younger than me – pass away too. It changes you, as all major events in life do, and there is no statute of limitations on grief.
In a world where the word is now overused to the point of becoming meaningless, you have always been a genuinely authentic person and I have always valued that in your writing and our chats, both face-to-face and via our old podcast. It will be a real shame if we do lose that connection to you – but it is entirely your decision to make and I completely understand where you are coming from. I’ve been there too over the past 12 months or so.
Hopefully I’ll still see you here as the mood takes you – either way, stay in touch. 🙂
Kate | Lesbemums 2nd January 2019 at 1:34 pm
Hannah, what a beautiful and confident sounding post. You can tell you’ve thought about this a lot and that you are now owning your decision. I’m so proud of you. You are one of the few genuine friends I have found from this community and I am so grateful. I have also found solice in several of your posts – I just wish I’d told you more so perhaps you wouldn’t feel that you needed to stop?
The blogging world is an incredibly difficult one to be a part of. It’s evolving, and if you don’t keep up you feel that you’re falling behind. Its very rare, these days anyway, that people start because they want to write. Equally, the community is now over-saturated that it’s hard to find genuine and decent writers through the sponsored posts and #ads. This makes me so sad. Thankfully, I joined when there were a bounty of writers, so I now have my collection of faves – you, of course, were/are in there.
Blogging for me is still very much a diary, and I remind myself of that when I fall into the trap of comparing myself with others. Keeping it as a diary gives me a freedom. There aren’t any deadlines, there isn’t any forced writing. I’m writing because of ME and I can do what the hell I like. If this is something that you do too, then I hope that this is something you will feel too.
Although I will be incredibly sad if I never get to read something by you again, I will be happy knowing that you are happy. Much love, darling.
Alex Lamb & Bear 2nd January 2019 at 10:44 pm
Our paths have been so similar and I feel every word you’re saying.
If there’s anything we can both take from our 5 years of blogging, it’s each other.
Louise (Little Hearts, Big Love) 4th January 2019 at 4:07 pm
What a beautiful post Hannah and how lovely that you had the opportunity to read those words from your nan. I think blogging just to record those little family moments is the nicest way to blog. I am forever grateful for all the moments i’ve captured on mine. I’m sorry that 2018 was such a tough year for you too though and hope that 2019 will be a better one. Lots of love xx