In the past two weeks I have seen so many brilliant, articulate and amusing posts about BritMums Live 2013. I have devoured the words of others and said things out loud like “This!” and “Oh, no! Poor thing!” And “Was she there? How did I miss her?” And yet I find myself further now from writing a post than I have been since last Saturday evening when I dropped my many bags on the floor and hugged my excited children.
I cried all the way home from BritMums Live.
It happened that this has been a particularly difficult year for our blogging world, and so many of the posts in the last hurrah were terribly saddening. No wonder there were boxes of tissues on every table. But what I felt as the very busy train carriage stared and rolled their eyes at me, what was that?
I was exhausted. I spent 36 hours fully immersed in a world that I usually dip in and out of as it suits me. I was constantly on the lookout for faces who were simultaneously familiar and alien: wanting to meet those I have chatted with online but never met, wanting to ease the arrival of those who in advance had said that they were nervous, wanting to catch up with good friends from the blogging community.
I was nervous about speaking in front of a potentially large – I was in the main room- number of people about subjects I suddenly felt woefully ill-equipped to talk about. Twice. I worried that I made the right choices about which talks to attend, which brands to speak to, which brands to talk about, whether my blog looked big in this.
And I was excited. Excited to be there for the first time, to be recognised by people who loved my blog, to be asked to talk to others about what I know, to spend time with fellow bloggers, to laugh, to learn things, to be all that I am online without the day-to-day constraints that real-life ordinarily puts in my way.
And when I came home, it took time for me to find my feet. To process the lessons. To be amazed at the quality of writing, the brilliance of so many blogs I have never come across, the things I have still to learn, to aspire to. And I took a look at myself. And it sucked, to be honest. I questioned myself, my writing, my blog, what my future held. The whole nine-yards. Not in an attention-seeking way- at least I hope not- more in a soul-searching way.
And I realised that blogging is very much a BIG PICTURE THING. We were all there because we wanted to be. We were all excited to meet each other, to learn from each other, to support each other. We were all star-struck by Kirsty Allsop being so ‘normal’. We were all spellbound by Katie Piper’s inspirational story. We were all charmed by the self-deprecation of every single winner at the BiBs Award Ceremony: not a single person expected to win. As a ‘loser’ it never occurred to me to be anything other than utterly overjoyed when Mummy Barrow’s name was called out.
And when the climax came, when our own took to the stage to read their keynote posts, every one of us cried tears for Kylie and Matilda Mae and Kerry. We all sang, sobbing, to honour the gaping hole they have left in our community. That’s what I take away from BritMums Live: the community. The fellowship. The friendship. No, it’s not conventional to be friends with people you may never have met, to cry tears for their loss, to donate money to causes close to their hearts, to send flowers to cheer them. But that’s what we do.
Time and again I have seen across the web a demonstration of community: when Clara’s house needed fixing up, we offered help. When Matilda Mae died, we sent flowers and food and wrote her name across the internet. We prayed for Kerry and comforted her family when those prayers weren’t enough. We have retweeted a letter to Thames Water for Jane, and we have retweeted Team Honk who travelled to Ghana with Comic Relief. We chattered excitedly about Red Ted Art’s new book, as if it were our own. We share content, we share advice, we bolster the lonely, the sad and the overwhelmed. We do all this because we care.
So when people ask me why I blog. That’s what I’ll tell them. That’s what BritMums Live taught me.
Ha ha Gemma! Yes, you are right. Kelly, perhaps we should start an over emotional bloggers’ support group? First meeting, tonight in the pub.
can I suggest that as you an Alison live in the same area of SE London and both cried all the way home that maybe next time you travel home together – at least you can give each other hugs.
Clever idea!
Beautiful post. I wasn’t there as I always forget to get tickets for these things but I can feel the sense of community just oozing out of your post.
cracking post! and again thanks for all the RTs x x x
Thank you for crying for me, it means a lot to me that people listened and cared.
It was a lovely weekend, and you are so right, the community spirit is very strong. xx
This echoes how i came away. In fact i was so reluctant to leave this group of virtual friends.
I have lots of little calling cards with notes on to follow up with this and that. Yours is in there too. It’s how virtual moves to real life. 🙂
That sense of community was abundantly clear during the whole weekend. I think sometimes as a newcomer to mummy blogging (my gateway was knitting) I feel rather on the fringes of that community and it’s that that starts up the whole ‘everyone is doing it better’. But at the end of the day i think i write for me, and for my girls; the community is the iced cherry on top of the already full to bursting cake.
I cried all the way home too. And you’re so right – being fully immersed into a world that we normally just have at the edge of our ‘real life’ was emotionally exhausting. But a properly worthwhile experience.
Great post, you’re right. I wish I’d chatted to you for longer lovely.