On November 17, 2000 I was struggling with a dilemma. Was I a good Mother or a bad one? What prompted this inner turmoil? The Great Breakfast Debate, had I destroyed any chance for a healthy life for my children by allowing them this horribly unhealthy breakfast this one time?
I’ll pause here while you go read what I wrote.
Ok, you’re back? Here are my thoughts on that diary entry.
It was silly of me to freak out and think I’m being a bad Mom because of one unhealthy breakfast. The world is made up of people who eat donuts and bagels slathered with cream cheese, fruit danish and other sugary crappy foods for breakfast. Here my kids had eaten some chicken and fries and I was losing my mind. Like my Hubby said, there are more important things to be worrying about than this. Get over it already crazy lady!
As for my worries about if this would be a one time thing, it was not. One of my kids favorite breakfasts became ‘left overs from the fridge’. It became a whole thing. In the dead of the winter they’d lay a blanket on the floor, sit and watch TV while they ate left over chicken, salads, Chinese Take Out, and sometimes it wasn’t even fast food. They’d eat the left overs that I’d made during the week too. They’d sit and chat and goof around with each other, and I eventually realized that they ate healthy food the rest of the time, so these few treats should be savored, especially since they were building a relationship with each other. So I stopped worrying about the food so much, and more about the love my family was sharing.
I think it all turned out pretty good. My kids love all the food they can get their little mitts on. Vegetables, cheeses, beef, chicken and pork. They even eat seafood, although I’m not sure where that came from since I am about as fond of seafood as I am of spiders. Shudder.
Also, the fact that I was freaking out about what my kids were eating for breakfast and not about the fact that we’d had fast food twice that week already (KFC and Burger King) boggles my mind. I really was a crazy lady!!
Plan to Write Again
Back in 1999, I started an online diary, a journal or as the kids these days refer to it, blogging.
Prior to 1999 I’d been involved in BBS (bulletin boards) and then moved to AOL chat rooms. I guess I’ve been involved in social media before it was ‘social media‘.
Nothing I wrote back in 1999 was very good, just verbal diarrhea put into written form. I cringe when I look it over again.
But then as the years passed, I began to find my voice, a writing style that allowed me to improve and get my thoughts out in a form that was easier to read, or at least it’s easier for me to read.
I’m jealous of that girl who sat down at the computer every day and wrote down her thoughts, dreams, and goals in such an easy fashion.
I sit down with the intention of writing something, and I start to write and realize that what I’m writing is crap. So I close it down, and it becomes a draft and I have now accumulated so many drafts that will never see the light of day, and it saddens me.
So, as a new writing tool, something to try to stimulate me into writing again, I am going to revisit those Diaryland entries from so many years ago.
I’ve moved my archives from that site to this one, but I never made any of those old entries public. I was writing back then with anonymity. Nobody in my real life would see what I wrote, and so I think I bared myself more than I’m willing to do now. Perhaps that’s why I’m finding it so difficult to write again, because I am not being honest, I’m holding back and because of that I feel like it’s less than it should be, and just not good enough to ‘publish‘.
So, as I bring my Diaryland archive out to the light of day again, I’ll be writing blog entries about them, my thoughts on what I wrote then, and how things turned out, if they are still relevant even.
Let see how this all works out.