The truth shall set you free – or lock you up…

Kicking off the guest posting for this week is Emma, of Where There’s a Willer…  She’ll try to convince you that you shouldn’t go visit her blog, but she’s wrong – you should. 

Not that I have written one before, but my understanding is that guest blog posting protocol dictates that you put a little blurb on your own blog to direct people to the external post.

But, I won’t be.

Not because I don’t think people should come and visit Glowstars (they should, come and read and enjoy!). Not even because my readership is so miniscule that it’s not worth it (because, damn, it’s tiny).

It’s because my limited readership consists mainly of (a) my family; (b) my husband; (c) I think, my husband’s ex-girlfriend (Hi Clare!) because she started following me on twitter; and (d) dear, close, real life friends. And that is why my blog is crap, and that is why I’m not going to link to this post, because for once, I’d like to be honest and tell you a bit about what’s really going on.

You see, my blog started off not as a proper blog, but as a way to update my Canadian friends and family who seemed so far away when I lived in England. I had been using a tripod-hosted website to do this, in a way, where I’d post pictures of touristy-London and put a bit of dialogue around them. I knew of one old friend who had a blog, but hers was the only one I read. And then things started happening, like planning a wedding, the July 7th bombings, being pregnant and having my first son – and a blog fit the bill to meet my communication needs.

But then I discovered the wider blogosphere. That there were all these neat conversations going on. That there were other Canadian ex-pats musing on living in England. And the most important revelation of all – that other new mothers were struggling with motherhood like me, and they were writing about it. So I found them, slowly began to comment, slowly began to feel safe hanging out at some of the ‘big wig’ blogs. A few months ago I even dared to leave a comment on Dooce!!

But my blog isn’t really like the rest that I read – the compelling stories, the snippets of life so accurately described. My blog is a surface reading of some dumb stuff that’s going on. My blog is censored. My blog is watered down, so my mother doesn’t call me to discuss what she’s read (okay, she still does, and it annoys the hell out of me). My blog makes me a liar; I tell the lie of omission.

Want to know what’s really going on? Want to hear about how I really think having children has damaged my marriage? Want to know that I often wish for single parenthood because life would be easier without being disappointed all the time? Want to know that I’d love to have more kids if I didn’t have to spend a year of hell off of work with them (a.k.a. maternity leave)? Want to know how much I resent that I can no longer just do what I want when I want to? Hello, I should so not be a parent!

Oh, I’d open the greatest can of worms EVER if I actually started talking about my relationship with my mother – and subsequently why I think I should never have a daughter. Want to hear about my lifelong issue with emotional eating? Should we get into why I’m really fat? It would be great to tackle why I just never seem to be able to do anything about it (read: LAZY).

Sorry, ain’t gonna happen. So don’t go and check out my blog, because it’s kind of a waste of time.

(Thanks, Vic, for the opportunity to vent!!)