Welcome To The New YML!

 

Did I really just write a post talking about my new site four days after it launched? Why, yes. Yes, I did.

Part of the reason for the delay is because I’m still trying to figure out what I want to do with the space and what it’s supposed to represent.

Here’s what I’ve got so far. I started this blog in 2008 because I felt like “I” was missing from the conversations about parenting. No one looked like me. No one had a life like mine. A brief reminder: when I found out I was pregnant with my daughter, I was 20. I was unmarried. I had no health insurance. I was making about $400 a semester. In short, I was not feeling very confident about this journey ahead of me and the fact that every mother who seemed to have a voice about anything was a) white b) older c) rich and d) married, I just felt so out of place and unheard.

So I started writing. About everything. About anything.

And people started writing, telling me that my stories were inspirational. And really, I could have been anybody. I still don’t think my story is all that compelling compared to people like Lisette or Gloria. My point is that just being here, in the space, was enough to give other people hope.

So I kept writing.

And then I caught the attention of folks in high places. Traveling to conferences and making speeches and presentations. That is fun. I definitely enjoy that.

So I kept writing.

I tweaked my formula a bit, starting being a bit more open with my life story and who I was and what I stood for. Then the rug got pulled out from under me when I lost my job. But I just considered it an opportunity to go full force with this here community.

So I kept writing.

I wrote about the ups and downs of trying to build a career where you fit your work around your children, versus trying to fit your children around your work. I talked about working from home, about blogging, about everything that I was doing as I was still trying to figure out how to do it. This could have potentially been embarrassing, as living your life out loud can sometimes be.

But I kept writing.

And that leads us here, to today. I’m still writing because I need to. We all do. We all need to share our stories and be our most authentic selves. We need to talk about what bugs us, what gives us hope, what makes us laugh, what gives us strength. We need a community to give us that space to simply be ourselves.

I want this space to be comfortable for you. To see a new post and instinctively know that yes, you are welcome here. This new redesign is all about capturing that spirit and putting it into digital form. I hope you enjoy it.

And I will keep writing.