Who do you think you are?

Fresh out of college at a time when personal blogs were really taking off, I decided to start one myself because I like to write, I’m an over-sharer at heart, and I had some time on my hands when the intersection of my college graduation and the recession delayed my post-graduate work plans – it seemed like a natural fit.  

As much as I enjoyed my blog, it went the way of many of my childhood journals and more and more of my entries started with some version of, “Hey, sorry it’s been a while.” You’re welcome to go check it out, it is still there – HerSouthernGrace.blogspot.com. I almost didn’t want to mention HSG it in this post but what the heck, if you’re really curious or bored enough to check out the musings of 22-year-old Grace then go for it. There were a few reasons HerSouthernGrace petered out. For starters, though I initially had a pretty flexible schedule, I eventually committed to Teach For America and thus my time at the computer became more about putting together lesson plans and less about sharing easy appetizer recipes. I think the next hurdle for HSG was that at the time I was trying too hard to be what I thought a blogger needed to be and so this unnecessary filter ultimately made it harder to keep the engine going.  Like, if you were to tell me I began my blog entries with, “Hey darlings” or ended them with “Stay Chic” I would have said – no way, that doesn’t sound like me, I’d never say that. But I did say that. And it doesn’t sound like me. If you know me you know I’ve never waved goodbye and said, “Stay Chic!” Though, maybe I should start? Anyways, even though I eventually stopped writing, I kept reading. Talented bloggers continued to be an enhancement to all aspects of my life and when Instagram came along it was an easy sell for me – an even more visual way to connect to interesting people who have the generosity to share their good ideas. When I became a mom, I leaned into the blogosphere and world of influencers even more. The exchange of knowledge and encouragement have been a welcome extension of the proverbial village that it takes to raise our babies.

I started to feel that maybe I’d like to revisit blogging. I thought of a blog name. I Googled “How to start a blog” because even though it had only been a few years since I’d plucked away at the keyboard, the landscape had changed and I felt intimidated. I told my husband, my sister, and some of my friends, that I was thinking about blogging again and I got all of the encouragement in the world. But even so, I just couldn’t do it. I just couldn’t. The list of reasons “why not” grew and grew and I fixated on an ugly phrase rattling around in my head – “Who do I think I am?” I asked myself. Not in a charming, existential kind of way, but a nagging, feed-the-anxiety-beast kind of way. What’s the point? Who needs another blog or another blogger? What is so special about me? I don’t know about you, but sometimes the things I tell myself are things I would never say to a friend and I would want to cry if my daughters ever talked this way to themselves.  But the reality is I had abandoned HerSouthernGrace and it felt like a failure- and who wants to feel like a failure? So I did what makes sense sometimes and I procrastinated until my hypothetical blog could be “perfect”. Until I could be sure I wouldn’t fail. I wanted to protect myself from that terrible feeling. But here we are, you’re reading my first blog post – so obviously something changed and it isn’t that I’ve miraculously figured out how to be perfect. What changed is that I have redefined failure, and failure to me would now mean ignoring this tug at my heart to share and make connections. Failure would mean letting my negative self-talk get the best of me.

I try to instill in my girls the sentiment that bravery doesn’t mean you’re not scared. We say that bravery means you may be scared but you try your best. In those moments when we are scared and do it anyways, we are the bravest. I’ve decided to take my own advice. I’ve decided that even though I feel slightly nauseous anytime I talk about GBG as if it is a real thing, that this dizzy feeling is not rooted in anxiety but is more closely related to feelings of excitement. And I’ve decided to answer the question, “Who do I think I am?” with some kindness and generosity.

With the exception of calling people “chickadees” – a phrase I have literally never said in real life but tried so hard to make work on HerSouthernGrace – I am mostly the same person I was then, just with the seasoning and self-possession only a decade of life can bring. I still love travel, entertaining, and home décor. I can be found hunting for treasure at thrift stores. I am a shameless fan of reality television. I’m a sucker for fresh flowers and good margaritas.  I’m still married to my high school sweetheart and trying to intentionally create a home and life with him. But things have changed. We recently moved from Dallas back to Florida. I am now a mother and I stay-at-home with my girls. And both the old and new will be a part of GoingByGrace.

So I don’t know who needs to hear this but if you have any of that negativity passing through your brain right now then just stop – ask yourself “Who do you think you are?” and answer in the kindest way possible and get going.