Once upon a time, I was a mom blogger. If you knew me back then, you knew how insane passionate I was about my “mom blog.” I started it back in 2004 and quickly became addicted.  I was a blogaholic. No… seriously. My face was always glued to the back end of my blog. I was obsessed over getting comments, promoting my blog and being a top mommy blogger.  I had amazing traffic, a devoted following and was even able to monetize. After posting about family disputes and other subjects that made my stats soar, I started to receive requests from people I knew not to blog about them. My friends and family were always asking if their antics, conversations etc, would be made public for the sake of my traffic. I waved them off and thought that they were just jealous of my bloggy awesomeness.  Blogging was my life and everything was blog fodder. To take a hiatus from blogging was rare. Blogging was like crack cocaine and I had become a crack whore. Then God allowed a few reminders of what I had forgotten in my blog lust. I can recall three instances when I had to step away from blogging for awhile in order to deal with these unexpected circumstances. The following occurrences happened over the course of approximately one year and were pivotal in my life and my blogging.

My grandfather passed away In February of 2007. He was a father to me. He walked me down the aisle, taught me everything I hold dear and was my favorite person in the world. The week after his passing, I had to stay with my grandma and get the funeral arranged. All the while though, I was stressing about my lack of content and possible decline in traffic. I was supposed to spend a weekend with my grandfather the month before he died, but I was far too busy….blogging.

My oldest son had to be hospitalized for post traumatic stress and attempted suicide in July of that same year. He was only eight years old at the time. It was a five day period of utter hell. I got someone to take care of my blog while I was away, so I didn’t have to worry about that on top of my family emergency. (Why was that even a thought in my head at the time? I could kick my own butt when I think back on my skewed mentality.)

By December, my extended family started to despise me. I have a lot of in-laws…26 to be precise. I had to choose between holding onto the respect of my husband’s family, or having my successful blog. It is a long story and I won’t bore you with the details,  but in the end, I chose the former.

The story didn’t end there, in fact, it was just the beginning. I had to step back and take a good hard look at my life. I was forced to reevaluate what my priorities were. Obviously, my blogging obsession had begun to cost me more than any amount of money could make up for. It took me months of rehabilitation. I know the idea of blog addiction rehab is sort of silly, but it was brutal. I went through withdrawals like a crack head would. I had to delete my Twitter account, get off of the internet and seek out ways to create inner peace and balance. I’m still trying to repair the relationships that I so badly damaged. Recovery is not a short, smooth road, but I’m so fortunate to be walking it anyway. My once glorious mom blog sits abandoned to this day and although I miss blogging about my funny motherhood moments, I don’t regret my choice.

I still blog on occasion, but never again on that blog. I host Tweetups, am involved in online community and broadcast a web show. I love social media.  However, I come at all of it from a new perspective. Had the three incidences above not happened, I may not be able to look at life the way I do now. Yes, they were hard to live through, but they taught me an invaluable lesson. The lesson was this:

We are bloggers. We blog about our lives, but our lives are not our blogs.

I learned this lesson the difficult way and I believe that it was for a greater purpose than just turning my own life around. My story will serve as a lesson to many others who are trapped in the place I was once in. Take it from me, having the most popular blog,  most comments, most awards is not what life is about. Life is about making each moment memorable and mom blogging is about recording those memories for posterity. Let’s keep it that way.

Blessings,

Kadi Prescott