Why?

In following with the great blog writers of the 21st century, I feel obliged to write at least a short piece detailing the reasons why this blog exists. It’s not because I’m bored or self-centered. It’s because I’m bored AND self-centered.

When my sister-in-law started her blog, in all seriousness, I asked her, “Why?” I hurt her feelings and had to ask her to forgive me for my insensitivity, but I was confused about the whole blogging community. I figured people who blog must have really interesting lives and have lots of people who want to read about their interesting lives -- that and a lot of time on their hands.

Somehow the repetitive existence of blogs pulsated its way through my mind and dulled my initial perception into desensitized acceptance. My life is not exceptional, nor do I have a following of people who find me so -- and I have no time on my hands. So here I blog. If you can figure out the logic in all that you’re way ahead of me.

I think the first reason I’m blogging is to reassure my husband that I’m still the brilliant, witty, charming, sophisticated woman he married. Very often by the time he arrives home and asks, “So, what are you thinking about? What did you do today?” he sees only a stumbling shadow of a woman, staring vacantly off into space. One day he knocked on my head and said, “Hello, hello. Anything going on in there?” Regularly, the poor man shakes his head and mutters, “I’m fishing here, Laurena... looking for anything.”

Unbelievably, I think about millions and billions and trillions of things. But as evidenced by the previous sentence, these things are shrouded in the mysterious fog of motherhood. (For the uninitiated who missed the non-adult literary inference there, see Millions of Cats by Wanda Gag.)

I ponder things like, “What is it like to live with no concept of time?” as my five year old asks me to tell her the time for the thirty-first time that day. Like it matters to her. She doesn’t even understand minutes and hours. So, I start thinking about how the conceptualization of time develops from the newborn baby to adulthood. I ponder how one’s philosophies on life and the assignation of the meanings of events necessarily change based on one’s concept of time. I think about cultures throughout history and how their measurements of time affected their philosophies of life.

I think magnificent thoughts. Really. I build systematic neuron bridges that connect indefinitely. It may look like I’m doing dishes, picking up toys, and breaking up quarrels, but there is, in fact, measurable electronic activity happening in my head.

Another reason I’m blogging is that I like to write. I like writing, especially when it involves analyzing and explaining. It’s the teacher in me, I suppose. Synthesize. Create. Regurgitate. And if I do it well, neurons explode in other people’s heads as they begin to build bridges that connect indefinitely. If I can make you laugh, feel understood, contemplate life, find hope, and/or make a connection you’ve never seen before, then I find joy. It’s all about me. I’m selfish, remember? See paragraph one.

The final reason I’m blogging is that my brain is bored. The life of a mother and housewife is one of repetitiveness. In order to survive, we moms travel down well-paved roads where we have, by sheer repetition, become very efficient. Automation is the survival technique of motherhood. This is why watching new moms is so entertaining. (This will definitely be explored further in another post.) The first time the baby throws up it takes her several hours to recover. By kid number three or four, thirty seconds is all it takes to whisk away the evidence and move on with the day. When a mom takes the road more often traveled, it truly makes all the difference.

So, when I do step out of the machine of the Townsend household, my brain is begging to do a different kind of activity. It dives into a philosophical and theological spin where no live entity needs to be fed, watered, or wiped. It meanders back and forth through imagination and reality to a silent spot where full sentences are constructed without interruption. There it spins together the volumes of knowledge hidden in the darkened corners of my mind with the events of the day, and instead of it fading away as one day becomes the next it will now be sent out through my fingers into some sort of pixilated permanence.