Celebrating International Women's Day - The Best Friends You’ve Never Met

Voices from the Blogosphere – Blogger Spotlight

Welcome to Blogger Spotlight, where we showcase the voices of Mamapedia community moms through their authentic and wonderfully diverse blog posts. Sometimes humorous, sometimes informative, sometimes bittersweet—always engaging. Enjoy!

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The Best Friends You’ve Never Met

I know blogging is not as bright and shiny and new as Twitter or Pinterest or Flshtb. (I made that last one up, but you thought you were out of the loop for a second, didn’t you?)

In fact blogging may be downright old fashioned even though it only charged into the mainstream about six or seven years ago.

Or maybe that’s just mom-blogging. For myself, and I imagine many of you, what drew me to writing post after post after post was the sense that I was not alone. Even if sometimes my pitifully small (often none) number of comments made me question whether or not I was shouting into the abyss.

But as my blog roll (remember those) grew and I spent hours a day reading what my fellow moms had to say I formed bonds with so many incredible women. I marveled that people outside of New York could write with crackling wit and sarcasm that I thought only existed within a 50 mile radius of Times Square. How arrogant and stupid of me.

I would sob reading Kate Inglis’ (who I only knew back then as Sweet & Salty) story of having lost one of her newborn twins. Liz’s (Mom101) posts were, to me, the gold standard of how impeccably written and thought provoking funny posts could be. And they continue to be today.

My husband couldn’t understand when I would tell him what my friend Christina was up to, or the hilarious thing Wendi ‘said’. I’d have to clarify Christina, (sigh) was Fairly Odd Mother! And Wendi — well, you know the tampon thing?

I’ve always written anonymously so when I finally went to a BlogHer conference I’d wore a badge that said “Gray Matter Matters” and wrote my name underneath. And I’d be so excited when someone would grab and hug me and say “It’s so nice to finally meet you!”

Mom-blogging is a powerfully strong community. We laugh and cry and support one another in ways that are unfathomable to those who don’t “get it.”

On February 6 Susan Neibur died after fighting Inflammatory Breast Cancer for years. I didn’t know her. I may have ridden an elevator with her or sat at her table at a conference for all I know. I read her blog occasionally and my heart would ache. Sometimes I just couldn’t read it, because I couldn’t imagine what it would be like to be in her shoes. It was too scary.

We all knew she was going to die very soon. But on February 6 Twitter and Facebook ignited with a wave of sadness and sympathy for @whymommy. Just the words form a lump in my through. Why. Mommy. Unimaginable.

And beyond the devastation so many felt what moved me even more was how much we (yes, even those of us who didn’t know her personally) loved her and would miss her. “One of our own.”

Today happens to be International Women’s Day, a fitting day to remember that although mom-blogging may seem old fashioned and blog rolls laughable, one thing is still true—we are a true community. We come together. We support each other (usually). And we genuinely care deeply for one another.

I’m proud to be a mom-blogger and relieved to know that even though it may feel differently at times, being “one of us” means never really being all alone.

Betsy is a veteran blogger, freelance writer, and big thinker of thoughts. She blogs at Gray Matter Matters. You can also check out her scripts on Digit Wirl where she says even her strangest ideas can be useful.