I Don't Read Your Blog

I need to find a better answer to the statement. I'm never quite sure what to say or even if I'm meant to say anything at all. Standing at a party, drink in hand, talking about Syria, evacuation plans and whether having an embassy would make any difference. "Kirsty has a blog, what's it called? Something about the suitcases and the twenty kids?" I make a move to go back to the original conversation, what comes next somehow sounds like an apology "I don't read your blog". 

There's a pause, then I realize that's it. That's the end of the sentence. What happens next? Where do we go from here. Smiling I attempt to find something to fill what now feels like an awkward space. "It's not compulsory." I offer in comfort.

I want a better answer. An answer that somehow explains that the majority of bloggers spend much of their time thinking that absolutely no-one reads their blog. They are not shocked that you don't. They are far more shocked when you do. 

Some of my best friends have never read a post. Not one. People I love and care about, people who are not fans of social media and prefer paper to screen. People who l've shared houses with. People I've pitched tents together with, consoled in a time of grief and opened champagne in celebration. Friends, good solid friends. 

A girlfriend of mine, someone who I once shared a boogie board with so we could have the experience of being dragged through the water  at rapid speed behind a speedboat together. Taking turns on who went on top, we laughed hysterically as we lay on each other in our bathers, clinging desperately to a rope as we inhaled half of the River Murray. A girlfriend who flashed her bottom out of a window as we drove down a highway as a dare, we giggled so uncontrollably that snot came out of my nose. The same girlfriend who is the godmother of my firstborn and whom I described at my wedding as my rock - because I know that if I really needed her, she would always be there. She doesn't read the blog. And that's okay.

I do not know the lesson plans of my teacher friends. The arrests that were made by police friends. The shares that were traded by share broker friends, or the recipes cooked by caterer friends. I ask them how work is and they answer in the usual ways. Sometimes they ask me about writing and I answer in the usual ways (I'm crap at it but I keep plodding along trying to get better).

I think it's safe to say that 99% of bloggers do not stand in a crowded room with the thought that everyone around them has read their blog. They just don't. And if you're me, you're more likely to discover that someone has read the blog and therefore must definitely think/know that you're a tosser.

This morning I finished reading/sobbing through (for the second time) "Worse Things Happen at Sea". It is perhaps my favourite book. Maybe because it's about everything I like to write and think about: family, relationships and the moments that just happen, the day to day that looks like nothing but means everything. The walk to school, the ride in the car, the view of your children walking ahead of you along the beach.

Reading about another family's beauty and sorrow reminds me of why it's important to me to capture the moments of our life. Some people take amazing photos, others record video, I write stories. 

And I'm really glad that you come here to read them. REALLY glad.

And if you don't? That's okay. It's not compulsory.