I had a case of brain freeze recently when my son was about to tell me something deep and meaningful, but felt compelled to preface it with, “Wait – you aren’t going to put this in your blog, are you?”
Massive amounts of guilt pulsed through my veins. “What? Of course not!” I told him, trying to sound reassuring. I felt horrible that he was about to confide in me, and he had to hesitate because I have a blog. That will become the cliché of the next generation – “Oh, I stopped talking to my mother because I knew it would just become a status update on her Facebook page, or a tweet, or a blog post.”
This situation caused me to pause and look at what I was doing to my family. I took a little break from writing as I did some self-reflection, facing questions about motherhood that I would not have even imagined thirteen years ago. Would my children hate me? Do I embarrass them online? I already know that I embarrass them in real life; that’s a given. I finally determined that there are topics I need to stay away from, but others that would probably be okay, and are too amusing not to write about. As my husband often reminds me, my blog is a place where he can look back and laugh about various family moments. With our fading memories, my blog is a time capsule of our family history. Without it, we might have no memories at all!
Which leads me to write about that time when my husband said he actually liked the film of dust that covers our family photos, and how much he looks forward to having assorted leftovers for dinner sometimes. (Okay, he didn’t say these things, but since he might not remember, I figured it was worth a try.)
Actually, this talk about fading memories leads me to write this: I can no longer remember what it was my son said after I assured him it would not appear in my blog. I have tried, but I can’t remember.
I have a feeling he’s probably forgotten, too. And with that … I feel a blog post coming on. I’ll be back soon.
