Daphne Bennett

I know blogging isn’t popular at all. Although there are a few diligent bloggers, many have dropped out years ago when social media takes over. I have started blogging since my teenage, on and off, more off than on. And every now and then, I wish I had a consistent blog of 5 years, 10 years, no matter how out of fashion it is, or not.

It’s 10pm. I am still waiting for my wee girl to go to sleep. And I have a demanding essay that I have to hand in, an impending deadline ahead of me.

Facebook & Instagram used to be fun. But recently I notice many people I actively (or passively) follow disappeared on my fb feed, replaced by more and more ads and repeated contents, contents that I have seen multiple times. And instead of showing me people that I follow, Instagram also shows me far too many ads and “suggestions”. They are always controversial and now it’s obvious they are not even fun enough to kill time anymore.

Even if one isn’t not looking for new followers, aiming to get thousands of likes in every post, one still must update daily, weekly, use the right hashtags to have people already following you to see your posts. And use the right new functions, the reels, the stories to keep oneself ‘relevant’. Honestly I don’t have the time for it. I am just a mum, whose schedule is impossibly tight and painfully unpredictable and dictated by everyone arouns me, whose days are soul destroyingly boring and unproductive. I draws when I have time, I need a creative outlet, I need to put one word after another to make sense of the world, I want some feedback but but I won’t have enough time to update regularly to please the algorithm.

On the other hand, do I really need feedback? A cheering team? A tutor who can point out I need to improve my writing style? A professor to show me my spelling mistakes? It’s just my ordinary life, what feedback do I need? I wouldn’t ask my friends to get email notifications from me whenever I write a few lines. I am too shy for people I know see my grammatical mistakes and messy composure. It is impossible to be nakedly honest to everyone all the time (that’s why we care how we dress!). Blogging and diary keeping do feel like shouting into a void, but maybe that’s what I need. A void to suck in all my negativity.

As we are entering a new year, I can see more clearly I am not actively starting a business, trying to sell anything, attract any attention to seek commission work or opportunities. I have a plate full of housework, uni work and baby duties, anything, literally anything more than I am already doing, will tip over and prove itself unachievable and disappointing (which honestly, that’s what I have seen in 2021).

So this is another year. Another year of being a fulltime mum. Another year of trying and failing. But maybe this is really the year I can start the blog I want myself to read in the future. I am going to upgrade and get a domain this month, but I am going to write about anything and everything I want to read later, without thinking whether I can attract the right audience, or if it will help me in what ways in the future.