Why do I blog?

I've been avoiding this little space of the internet lately... mainly because I feel like I kind of lost sight of why I blog in the first place. As a result, it was time to take a little step back and reevaluate.

So. Why do I blog? 

It honestly started out as a place to keep my mom and Nana informed on my life. A place that wasn't Facebook, wasn't texting, it was easy to add photos and write long stories/thoughts in one place. Then it somehow, over time, became another social media outlet where I would try to make my life look more glamorous than it really was, editing pictures, embellishing stories, only telling the good parts.... not that my life isn't great, because it really is amazing! But it suddenly became about the followers, "what do the readers want to read?" lolz assuming I even have any readers besides my ever faithful mother and Nana, and "how can I get more followers?" Then I found myself trying to take it one step further where I was trying to earn some mullah via blogging (part of the reason for this being that I couldn't find a job for about 2 months here in Ohio) - which I have nothing against so props to you that can blog for a living!! - but it just started to take the fun out of it when I was obsessing about how I could do this or do that.... It became less fun and more stressful when I was thinking about all of these stupid, meaningless things...

And let's face it. It seems like every mormon girl out there has a blog where she is posting tutorials and tips and fashion posts where she looks fabulous every single day and they all have husbands who have time (not to mention incredible talent) to take the perfectly lit and posed photos. They can afford the fancy cameras and clothing and blog designs and all of that jazz and it's just not realistic for me. My blog became a place where I felt that in order for me to be happy with it or feel successful I had to do all of that? Aint nobody got time for that! Especially when I am trying to work 2 jobs for a total of more than full time hours just to make a small dent in the student loans, all the while trying to keep a clean house, and exercise, and make healthy meals, and keep up on the laundry and dishes, and this and that. I'm not saying that its a bad thing if you can do all things and have all of those things. I really am happy for you! But for me, it's just too much! And it's pointless to try to be perfect alllll the time. It's not real.

I forgot that I blog for me. Because I enjoy writing. And I enjoy telling our story. I enjoy having a place where I can share my accomplishments and adventures as well as my struggles. I enjoy that my blog is an outlet for my feelings, my creativity, and my passions. So from now on, I'm going to try harder to be more real, to be more myself, and to not let anyone or anything else determine my worth.

Via Pinterest.

Feel free to #keepitreal with me :) xoxo, Chelan