I am narcissist. Hear me blog.

So I got to thinking last night. Yes, it happens every once in awhile, even with my very foggy sleep-deprived brain.  And for whatever reason, it almost always happens when I am in the bathroom.  I’m not sure why that is, but for whatever reason, being trapped in a room full of porcelain seems to lead to most of my moments of pensive inspiration.  So what occurred to me anyway?

Well,  I started to wonder:  does starting a blog to write about myself and my musings and passions mean I am a narcissist? That I love myself so much I think things should be “all about me”? Eeeeep! I really hate to think so, but part of me got very nervous at the prospect.

Truth be told, I love typing. I love words and writing. But I also just plain love typing. I love the click click click. I love when I get typing so fast that my husband says to me “slow down or I’ll have to get out the fire extinguisher”. 🙂 I love seeing the words appear on the page and then taking the time to rearrange them if they don’t seem to make sense to me after I’ve written them.

I’m a talker. I can admit it. Lucky for me, my hubby is a good listener. I used to be a good listener. I think I sometimes still am, but I also know that sometimes I just get so excited to share something I’ve learned or that I think is so interesting that I just need to blab all about it.

Enter the world of blogging. Now I can blab all about it, and then I’ve said it. Whether anyone reads it or not is really not all that important. But if someone stumbles upon it while searching for information about something (God, what did we ever do before Google?) and gets a little nugget of inspiration or learns something that will help them, that would just be icing on the cake.  I suppose I could just keep a diary.  But that wouldn’t be sharing.  And there is something about the thought of sharing, and of connecting with other people that is what made me want to blog instead of writing in a diary.

The web is more than just a hobby for me.  It has changed our ways of connecting.  Sometimes that is a negative thing.  People post comments on news stories that are obscene or rude and don’t think anything of it, simply because they are anonymous.  People stay at home and don’t go out and talk “IRL” (in real life) because it is easier to stay on the chesterfield in PJ’s and type.  Yes, I said chesterfield.  I am Canadian.  Hear me chesterfield.

In any case, as a new Mom the web has been amazing.  I used it while pregnant to research foods I should and shouldn’t be eating, medicines to avoid, what to expect (when I was… yes… expecting).  I read books too, but the web was so quick and convenient that I was drawn to it time and again.  I signed up for Baby Centre newsletters telling me all about what was going on inside the wondrous cavern of my growing belly.  Then I started to read threads in my Birth Club – the January 2010 babies.  That is when the magic started.  I “met” other Moms and Moms-to-be (some already had other kids).  We could commiserate through nausea and exhaustion and whatever other symptoms we were all sharing.  It was such a relief not to feel so alone at such a vulnerable time.

I met a Belly Buddy who I now call a close friend, even though we haven’t had the chance to meet in real life yet.  We’ve had the best conversations and so much fun along the way.  I also met other Moms who live near me and we’ve met up for poutine and baby conversation.  What a terrific bunch of ladies and a great time getting out of the house and seeing how everyone is doing and getting tips and feeling connected to a real community.

So even though I know that  I can spend hours on the web following on down the rabbit hole with one juicy link leading to another thing I want to read, and then another, I also know the web isn’t just some dumb inanimate object.  For me, it has been a source of networking, or dare I say, internetworking.  But even when it isn’t, at least after reading page after page on all areas of interest from breastfeeding to fashion to sailing to cloth diapers to recipes to pet care, and having bookmarked a whole bunch of new websites along the way – I know I have been enriched, entertained, irritated or engaged. Sometimes all of the above. But it has been time well spent wasted.  🙂  At least in my mind.

Hopefully my blog will leave you with a feeling of time well wasted as well.  If not, I’m sorry but that’s just time you’ll never get back again!  😉