WE WERE BLOGGERS

A month ago, I started writing a blog post where I waxed nostalgic about the old days of BlogHer. I had been thinking about how nice it had been to be in the room with these women I follow online and meeting new people, hearing their stories and reasons for blogging. I would walk away inspired to do more with my blog, be a better writer, take better pictures. That conference was something I never expected to be drawn to attend, but I never really expected to be a blogger. When Chris built my first blog in 2000, I looked at him with a raised eyebrow and said “What am I supposed to do with this?” He told me that this was a space where I could keep our friends who had scattered themselves across the state and country up to date on what was going on with me. I did not think that the blog would ever be anything more than that.

Over the years, this space has been my soapbox, my navel gazer, my practice in creative writing and my therapist. When Chris built that blog, he opened up a world of other voices and I found a community of women who awed me, inspired me, made me feel hopeful, and made me feel like I was a part of something. Many of those women I never spoke to in person, only on the rare occasion when I would be brave enough to leave a comment and maybe a word of hello at BlogHer. I never failed to fan girl geek out whenever I was face to face with some of these bloggers who I considered to be celebrities. I knew I would never be as cool or popular as these women, but I could cheer them on from the sidelines and buy their books. Even though I didn’t know these women in real life, a number of them reached out to me when Chris was sick, sending cards of support and care packages. I’m not sure I ever really expressed my gratitude for their thoughtfulness. Then things changed. Most of the women I followed in the blogging community have stopped blogging and have moved on to other things.

Except me. I’m still plunking down words full of navel lint as if anyone else might still be paying attention. 

When I saw the news of Heather Armstrong’s passing this week, I immediately reached for my phone to text Chris. Then I was just standing there at my desk, my phone in my hand, blinking at the screen. I felt untethered and between worlds. The one person I knew who would understand what I was feeling was no longer available. Heather Armstrong of dooce.com was one of the first women in the community of bloggers I followed and it was through her blog that I found other women like Maggie Mason, Alice Bradley and Karen Walrond. I wanted to meet women like her, women who bravely shared their ups and downs with us on the internet. Without even knowing she was doing it, she challenged me to be a better photographer and her words inspired me to keep writing. I have her books prominently displayed on my bookshelf along with the books by the other women bloggers I follow. Her words gave us all permission to be honest and open about our flaws, but she was also hilarious. I mean life can be a real shit show. We are better off finding the humor in it all and Heather Armstrong was pretty good at doing this. I never met her in person. I only very rarely left a comment on her blog. There is a small subset of women in the blogging community who did know her personally and seeing them sharing their memories of their time spent with her has been beautiful and sad. While Heather Armstrong could be a magnet for internet trolls and haters and she sometimes said things that we disagreed with, we can’t deny the impact she had on the internet and communities that were formed from her influence. I mean, dooce became a term we used for someone who got fired for their blog. It was a Jeopardy! answer. She opened up space for talking about uncomfortable things.

In the beginning, I remember having to make explanations about what a blog is or why someone might blog. People outside the blogging world thought we were crazy and often met the word ‘blog’ with some disdain. “Oh…you blog.” they’d say as if they had something sour in their mouths. There were people who just couldn’t understand why or how we could write about personal things and share it for the world, THE WORLD, to possibly read it. Whatever. Blogging is not for everyone, but I will say that we were the beginning wave of a mental health revolution. Women read about other women struggling with parenthood, jobs, sexuality, anxiety, depression and so much more and they could see that they were not alone. Many of those women bloggers normalized talking about mental health. We normalized talking about our bodies and all the weird things they start doing with age. We normalized talking about the hard adult things. I count myself as one of the smallest voices in this revolution. I’m grateful to the women like Heather Armstrong who were some of the biggest voices in this revolution, even if she was messy and flawed. And while it may seem odd to mourn the loss of a woman I never met, never really knew, I find that my grief over her loss encompasses the way things used to be. She was a part of that.

It is a more than unfortunate loss and I can imagine how unfathomably difficult this is for her family. 

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