Mutiny

Seven years.

Yep. I checked again tonight just to make sure I was giving you accurate facts.

I've been occupying this little corner of the internet for seven whole years.

Seven years is a long time to document life via Blogger. During these seven years we've made two separate moves to East Asia, took up residence in North Carolina for awhile, welcomed three babies into our family, experienced heartache, ups, downs, and in-betweens, and entirely too much stinky tofu for these two Texans.

But along the way, and specifically most recently, the blog has taken control.
I feel like I've lost the reins.

I'm talking crazy talk. Bare with me.

Social media was sucking away my soul. The blog was reeking the ever-loving life out of me and becoming entirely unenjoyable to even share our stories. Pinterest was constantly yelling in my face that I wasn't good enough.

The point being: I was just done. I was over it.
I was sick of comparing myself. Fed up with trying to be the funniest. The wittiest. The most sincere. The most culturally sensitive yet also the most culturally rebellious. The best at telling stories. The best at taking pictures. The best at fitting in but also doing the best at standing out. The best kids' crafts. The best recipes. The best stories of failure.

Enough already!

So for the past month-or-more I've been in mutiny against the blog. Most social media. Pinterest.

I've mutinied. 

Thrown a mutiny. 

I'm mutinying.

It's mutinous around here.

Pick your verb preference.

I know I'm not alone here. I think it's something most women struggle with. And for some reason we choose to douse ourselves in it by pouring over Pinterest and lamenting the fact that we can't repurpose a sweater into a house rug, turn a wooden pallet into a book shelf, or make turkeys out of reeses peanut butter cups and candy corn.

So rather than choose moderation. I chose nothing. 

No pinterest.

No blogging.

No tweeting.

No status-ing on facebook.

No writing. 

(almost) No blog reading.

I did stick to instagram so that the grandparents wouldn't disown me. 

And now, on the other side of The Great Mutiny, I can't say that I feel a whole lot better. Or that I've chosen a new direction for this little insignificant space of the internet. Or that I'll never do Facebook again or that I'll rise up and rebel against all things social media. Or even that I'll dive in face first again.

I just know, that from now on, if this blog continues, it won't be used as a Chancler Timeline screaming at me to update twice a week because that's what good bloggers do. The pressure to make sure things are succinctly laid out in the order of occurrence is gone. The wittiest stories won't be written here. The best pictures won't be taken here. The best cultural-oopses won't be documented here.

And I'm choosing to be ok with that.

And I'm choosing to move on.

I'll still blog. Because that's what a daughter that has up and moved across the planet and taken grandparents' grandchildren away from them has to do.

I'll still take pictures. Because I have awesomely beautiful children living in a land that thinks it's ok to feed them pig snout.

I'll still tell stories. Simply because I love writing. 

And in the end I'm choosing to remember that that's the reason I even started this seven years ago. 

End Mutiny.