“Should I stay or should I go now…”
Aren’t those the lyrics to a song? I think so; and I’ll search for it in a minute. (Oh yeah, it’s the Clash. It’s really about a relationship, but still slightly relevant.)
I’m not often prompted to follow the prompt of a Daily Prompt, but this one spoke to me because I’m at a crossroads — in the midst of a decision to stay or go…
…to the BlogHer Conference in July in San Jose.
I bought my pass the first day it was announced so I received an Early Bird discount and I have a Southwest ticket I need to use since it’s already paid for, but I’m not sure if I want to go.
I’m not sure what I’ll find there or if it’s worth it to attend.
In the beginning of my blogging journey, I was a newbie; gung-ho to write and purge and acquire readers and followers and belong to groups that seemed to be JUST LIKE ME.
Then I realized that I don’t really fit in.
THERE IS NO ONE JUST LIKE ME.
I am unique.
Except for the animal loving, pet picture sharing, SAHM, love-to-shop crowd, I don’t have a whole lot in common with other mid-lifers.
For example, I don’t feel like sharing in great detail how my eyes are failing me, my cholesterol levels are high, or my vaginal dryness is preventing me from enjoying the penis of my choice.
I am by nature a private person and don’t feel the need to overshare on social media, plus my tugboat man hub won’t even let me take a pic of his face OR use our real names.
I don’t and never have had hot flashes, I work out at the gym pretty much every day, and I have the agility and flexibility of a twenty-year-old — one who isn’t stuck to her iPhone 24/7.
For the record, I have great cholesterol levels, I’ve always worn glasses or contacts so nothing new there to complain about, and the only meds I take on a regular basis is Levoxyl for a slightly low performing thyroid.
I thought I could make a go of monetizing my blog, but I don’t really think most BRANDS find me representative of any demographic, so there goes that dream. I don’t have a lot brand loyalty (just Chanel haha).
Except for occasional retail therapy/shopaholic excursions, I’m a pretty thrifty gal, grow our own veggies, bake from scratch, and I drive a thirty-year-old vehicle.
What’s the point of going to a blogging conference?
The other attendees include women whom I naively thought were going to be part of a joyous and nurturing community of other writer/bloggers –but are really just midlife mean girls.
There’s a level of snarky schadenfreude competitive behavior that is very distasteful; not what I expected.
There are more and more female bloggers grasping for whatever dollars are out there, a huge pool of women jumping up and down, shouting “choose me, choose me!”, vying to be the wittiest, most outrageous, “Most Likely To Go Viral” and thereby fight their way to the top of the heap.
I didn’t hang with those girls in high school and I don’t find any kinship there now.
That’s not me.
This isn’t to say that I haven’t met some remarkable women that I totes respect and like and would love to hang with — and you know who you are…BUT I’m in the middle of a crossroads now.
So, do I stay or do I go?
As you can surmise, I’m a bit saddened and disenchanted.
My motivation to begin blogging was fueled by my DIL who told me I was funny and a good writer and I should blog for exposure in that realm — to earn an income by writing, something I could do from home while my tugboat man is out to sea for months at a time.
It sounded like a great idea, and a blogging conference seemed like a great opportunity to expand my knowledge and meet INDUSTRY EXPERTS, but now I just don’t know. I don’t seem to have the skills to crack the code. I’ve consulted with a couple of blogexperts and they both told me a blog needs a million views to be competitive. WTF? I thought my nearly 70,000 74,000 was pretty spectacular but I was wrong. Obviously.
Am I just scared to go by myself? Am I full of sour grapes?
What do YOU think? Should I stay or should I go?
http://youtu.be/GqH21LEmfbQ
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Daily Prompt: If You Leave
Life is a series of beginnings and endings. We leave one job to start another; we quit cities, countries, or continents for a fresh start; we leave lovers and begin new relationships. What was the last thing you contemplated leaving? What were the pros and cons? Have you made up your mind? What will you choose?
Photographers, artists, poets: show us CROSSROADS.
Life is a series of beginnings and endings. We leave one job to start another; we quit cities, countries, or continents for a fresh start; we leave lovers and begin new relationships. What was the last thing you contemplated leaving? What were the pros and cons? Have you made up your mind? What will you choose?
Trackbacks & Pingbacks
- Black-and-white mood | The Bliss of Reality
- Electric pole | Vintage Photography
- 1973 – Volkswagen Beetle | The Bliss of Reality
- 1970 – Volkswagen Beetle | The Bliss of Reality
- Night is young | Perspectives on life, universe and everything
- Crossing | Perspectives on life, universe and everything
- 1969 – Volvo 142 | The Bliss of Reality
- Tetris | Crazy Art
- Daily Prompt: If You Leave -Living Simple Life and the Obstacle | Journeyman
- Droplet from water tap explaining to its brothers and sisters structure of the world ocean | Crazy Art
- Leaving for the Normal | Mara Eastern’s Personal Blog
- Daily Prompt & The Button (short story) | The Jittery Goat
- Dp Daily Prompt: If You Leave | Sabethville
- of last straws | Anawnimiss
- dulu dan nanti | The Frozen Tears
- Leaving | Attempted Human Relations and Self
- I’ve Had Enough of This Utah Place
- Daily Prompt: Break Ups | Cabernet In The Dark
- I’m a Writer, Yes I Am
- Beyond the horizon | MC’s Whispers
- Who Really DECIDES? | I’m a Writer, Yes I Am
- Harry Potter, Famous Dads and Stoke Newington | AS I PLEASE
- Dear John: a fictional letter | ALIEN AURA’S BlOG: IT’LL BLOW YOUR MIND!
- Daily Prompt: Leave an old and start a new! Can I ? | seikaiha’s blah-blah-blah
- Selbstständigkeit versus Festanstellung | Zeitarbeiterin
- when love appeared in a yellow brick road | kaleidoscope sparks of defiance
- DP: Leaving – Autumn by Ruswa Fatehpuri | aliabbasali
- We Gathered Yesterday | Exploratorius
- Daily Prompt: If You Leave « Mama Bear Musings
- Crossroads | Inks and Scribbles
- A Letter To Say Goodbye | The Magic Black Book
- Too literal? Maybe, but I like the image…! | thoughtsofrkh
- Heartbreak | Flowers and Breezes
- COLORS AT THE CROSSROAD | SERENDIPITY
- Leaving Pittsburgh
- Daily Prompt: Why leaving a mouse is never easy | Blogizing
- I Give Up | The Zombies Ate My Brains
- Daily Prompt: March 12 | Balmy Life
- Remember where you came from… | Rima Hassan
- Contemplation | Lisa’s Kansa Muse
- Going on a break | Eclecticfemale’s Blog
- Daily Prompt: If You Leave | Awl and Scribe
- Leaving on a Jet Plane . . . | meanderedwanderings
- Daily Prompt: Crossroads | A Day In The Life
- Daily Prompt: If You Leave | Finding Life
- The Final Goodbye | Parents Are People Too
- 412 | mesardonicmesarcastic
I totally get why you’re on the fence about going. On one hand, it would be great to talk with all those people who make it look so darn easy. (I haven’t written in so long I don’t know if I even remember my log in info for my blog!) On the other hand, it would be meeting with a bunch of people with whom there is little common ground to discuss. ACK! Who wants to sit for days and try to make polite conversation… I think I’d rather stay home and contemplate why the living room needs painted again, chatting with my spider plant on why it refuses to send forth babies to be transplanted, and chastising the dog for removing and destroying yet another collar. 🙂
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Exactly, Deni. I know what you mean, it’s so satisfying to move the furniture around, work in the garden ha ha, and getting dressed up every day to make small talk and try to be the mostest wittiest girl around? Not so sure. Plus I’ve never been anywhere alone, don’t know what I was thinking! PS I do really good with spider plants, I bet yours is sterile, that’s why it doesn’t make babies.
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A plant can be sterile?? I must research this! 🙂
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Oh yes, I don’t know about spider plants but there are others that won’t reproduce cos the ag companies want to make you keep buying seeds, plants, etc and not propagate from existing plant. Here’s what I found about spiders: http://davesgarden.com/community/forums/t/997778/#b
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What a wealth of information I didn’t know. Thanks!!
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There are probably sites where the attendees are commenting like crazy. See if any of those people have worldviews that mesh with yours that you want to hang out with.
And since you have the tickets, may as well go.
At the worst, you can shop in a whole different city!
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El Guap, could you please tell me what my worldview is? I seem to be all over the place. Love your idea of shopping in San Jose-this would be the first time in my life I’ve gone anywhere alone!
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I totally understand and wasn’t that way in high school,either. I tend to go my own way and that is why I like your blog so much. Don’t see the need to conform. I also don’t think that you need a million viewers. Your DIL is right that you are funny and it shows in your posts. I personally think you wouldn’t have fun and you shouldn’t feel the need to conform. Maybe you could use the ticket for something else?
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I’m voting for “go.” You may very well meet some wonderful people. And if you’re not getting what you’d like out of the conference there’s always the lovely drive to beautiful Santa Cruz. They have some really great veg and veg friendly restaurants in Santa Cruz, and the vibe is really fun!
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Well, my DIL lives in SF and my son might be there too, so they’ll be there. Hub will prob be out to sea. Love your idea of going to santa cruz with some veg restaurants. Thank you! Hey, will you go to the Conf???
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I hadn’t planned on it. I’m so far out of the loop that I had not even heard of it!! I’m afraid I’d be much more interested in heading for the beaches than being inside for workshops and such.
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Head for the beach, that’s the best idea yet! I wish I could go to that beach in Florida, is it Sanibel? that has mounds and mounds of shells. Sounds like heaven to me, don’t you agree?
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Yes! Sanibel Island and Captiva Island are both amazing little paradises on Florida’s Gulf Coast. No surfing for hubs but lots of beachcombing and together time for both of you!
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Well, I will def put it on my list. He sometimes works out of Florida, MAYBE one day I’ll be able to talk him into a detour before he flies home!
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🙂
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Are you going to the Blogger Interactive event (hosted by Rara and Grayson) in Long Beach on 3/22? 😀
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Hey, I never heard about it! Where would I find the deers? Are you going?
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I will be there!
http://rarasaur.wordpress.com/2014/03/02/bi-meetup-so-cal-style-march-22nd/
(The Queen and Little Prince may be there too, if that helps get you to show up.)
So… are you coming?
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I will DEF be there unless we are in Zion. Hub promised we’d go as soon as the time changed and he has to go out of town for another seminar so not sure. But if we are here, I couldn’t turn down the chance to see your lovely family and YOU!
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Yeah, yeah. I know, it’s mostly the lovely family you want to see. I get it. They are pretty dang awesome. 😉
A trip to Zion sounds like fun. Hopefully the dates don’t coincide so you can do both!
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Just had a convo with hub about dates, so I’ll know pretty soon. I’d of course love to meet you in person specially to see if we recognize each other from UCSD graduation ha ha, but the lure of your little Prince is palpable!
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11 years ago this June. Can you believe that?
And, probably because I was in infant land last summer, somehow I totally spaced that last year was 10 years after graduation. Kind of crazy. Kind of awesome.
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Wow, I wonder if y’all had a reunion thing? My son didn’t tell me if they did. Now I feel REALLY old.
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Why? No need to feel old. 10 years is the blink of an eye.
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10 yrs + 10 more + ten more. Sigh
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Well, yeah, when you think of that way, they do start to add up…
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When you have a child about to be 33, you can’t help but feel old!
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I can only imagine.
The Little Prince is going to be 1 in a week…
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One, that is AMAZING. I still remember Angel Boy’s first bday. Congrats to him, I am partial to March babies!!!!
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Hard to go wrong with a March baby. 😉
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Is the BlogHer conference about celebrating what women have to say and how they say it, or is it about how to make money off what we say? I would go if I could learn something about being a better writer, but not if it was about how to market what we write. There’s nothing wrong with wanting to make money off the blog, but the two of us write as our outlet and our thinking process.
That whole mean girl thing in the blogging world…it’s a THING. You’re right.
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It’s more about how to make money off our words, market ourselves to brands, etc. You have a lovely way of describing things, just want you to know. I too think I’m more about becoming a more effective writer but I don’t like being the only one (it seems) not bragging about all the brands that sponsor me. And thanks for validating my feelings about the mean girl thing. 🙂
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In other news…Been totally thinking about you as I read the best book I’ve read in a while. Wanted to know if you’ve read it: Women who run with the wolves, by Clarissa Pinkola Estes. Non-fiction, dealing in archetypes and fairy tales. All connected to the wolf wild woman inside of us. It’s AWESOME. And probably right up your alley.
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I think I read it a long time ago but probably would get more out of it now than when I was younger. Thank you for the suggestion!
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That’s my conflict with BlogHer too. Everything is PR oriented, which is fine, but that’s not why I blog. I don’t fit in offline with most people, plus there’s the whole introvert thing on top of it all.
If I already had tickets (and you know, lived in Cali and could get there), I would go just to see, even if I ended up leaving early. (Plus I am sucker for free swag from vendors…as long as I don’t have to write about it 😉 )
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Wow, leave early, now that’s another great idea, why didn’t I think that? Another thing about me is that i HATE to eat in front of strangers, holdover from days of anorexia, and I would prob just take food to my hotel room. Also, never stayed in a hotel alone, crazy, right, at my age?? I think all of you have given me such helpful tools to go with a renewed sense of purpose, I might just do it, still have a few months to stress about it! Wish you could be there, tho.
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I used to take food to my room all the time at work conferences rather than eat at networking lunches. Now, they tend to have speakers while we are eating (annoying, right?) so that gets tricky since it is work related :-\
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I’ve done that too. I nibble at it, and then when the stupid thing is over, I wrap the food and take it with me (or eat it in a bathroom stall, not kidding) I’m not nearly as intense about that as I used to be, I eat just fine with hub/family, just not around others. I HATE to chew LOL
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I totally understand. I had dinner with a large group of friends last weekend and that was difficult. I got through, but work and/or strangers? No, no way.
Let us know what you decide as it gets closer to that time 🙂
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We do have a lot in common! Let’s go eat together/separately some day! It kind of depends on hub too, if he’s home, he’ll drive me and since he’s from the bay area, he can do something while I’m in whatever part of the conference I want to attend, and if he’s still out to sea, I’ll have to figure out if I can do it with no backup!
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Good point on the backup/support system.
One day I’ll get out there, but if y’all get to Virginia anytime, let me know!
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Will do!
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My initial response was gonna be something encouraging and morale-boosting, and show a little jealousy about how they never, ever have blogging events anywhere near where I live. But then I went and looked at the conference website, the announcements of which Big Names would be keynote speakers, the tiered ticket pricing list that seems geared toward bloggers who make a five-figure salary from what they do, all the photos of people in nice suits that probably cost more than my entire day-job wardrobe…
So now I’m bummed and feeling like an even tinier fish in a worldwide pond, but I’m wondering if maybe you should try it just this once so you can report back to us readers with all the lowdown on what really happens at these things. Call it the Enchanted Seashells Exposé 😀
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Can i really use that title cos it’s freaking awesome?! I used to be a reporter a lifetime ago, so that is right up my alley. If I think that way, more as an observer than a participant, it will give me a whole new perspective. Thank you, my friend! Now I feel a better sense of purpose instead of thinking I’d have to get drunk and obnoxious like I hear tales about. I’m not really a “letting loose” kinda gal. I’m bummed cos i’ve been turned down for things cos I don’t have millions of clicks…YOU write QUALITY content, very well written, thought out, and interesting. YOU need a book deal. There.
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Extremely nice of you to say. Right now I’m nowhere near the profitable million-click clique, but we’ll see what the future holds. 🙂 But yeah, by all means, the title is yours, and I look forward to seeing you use it well! My wife and I have been admitted to plenty of events where we were more like detached observers than actual fans. Sometimes we’ve been pleasantly surprised and enjoyed ourselves. Sometimes…uh, not so much. Either way, it’s something else we can share with others!
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I appreciate that, I think I might jump out of my comfort zone and go. If it gets really hard to take, I can always leave, right?
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“if I stay there will be trouble…if I go it will be double…” who the heck sings that?
mean girls suck, and I have a theory that if you are displaying mean girl behavior as an adult it is because you are a permanent B team player. Ignore them, go to the blogging event and enjoy (then please post about it as I am curious too!)
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Ha ha, hub says the clash sings that one too, too funny, girl! Well, if you were there (or Megan) , I know I’d have an ally, but I’m not used to entering the den of the lion without back up haha. You are so right; you know what’s going on as soon as you enter a room, right? I will hold my head up high (if I go) and be my sparkly self, and I know at least a couple of friendZ are going, so I should be OK. Yes, I’ll blog about it, but it might not be all smiles 🙂
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Just go to see if you can meet any interesting persons who shares your beliefs, and if you don’t feel you can have any chemistry with the people there, you can just leave early to catch up with some window-shopping nearby! Depends very much on your personalty. Are you the introvert or extrovert type? As for me, I have lower my expectations about blogging because Google has been giving lots of people hell, in its attempt to promote its advertised search business.
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There seem to be so many roadblocks to success! I am more of an introvert but if I put my mind to it, I can play the part of an extrovert. I pretend I’m Erica Kane from All My Children ha ha (if you ever saw that soap opera, you’d laugh)
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Go to the blogging event! It will be fun because you’ll be there. Plus, most of the girls (mean and otherwise) are there because they’re not making any moola off of their blog. None of us are. Pack all of your fabulous Cha Cha, take your camera and fill us all in on what we’re missing out on. And if you have any issues with mean girls, I can be the meanest and biggest of them all when someone is f’ing with a precious friend. Call on me! XOXO
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Oh you sweetie! I’ll feel better knowing I can count on you! I think I prolly will go and be the journalist/observer of truths that I used to be (for a local TV station) I’ll be the undercover mother. haha. Chacha for sure. If you were going, we’d be so drunkkkkkk lol.
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Oh we’d be so druuunkkkkk AND get to act like we were under cover TV reporters doing very important investigative work for a fake station. Ah….why aren’t I coming?!?! Maybe this is where we should meet up next year?! XOXO
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This year?? San Jose should be fun all by itself, and especially with you! Next year where’s it gonna be, I wonder? Undercover and drunk, a great combo lol
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Just THINK of the posts we would be blogging….!
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Now that shit’d go viral, right?
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Oh for reals.
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What a dilemma. I laughed about the dryness!! Get in line! But, am also wondering where to next with this blogging as I don’t have any aspirations to write a book or make money off this bit of fun aaaannnnd I don’t have a quarter of your traffic. I agree with others. Go and report back.
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Putting on a reporter hat is a great idea. Arianna Huffington is the keynote speaker, I can’t imagine what she’s going to say, but I will keep an open mind. Glad you liked my little snarky “dryness” humor. I mean, come on guys, is NOTHING private anymore??? I really appreciate your comment and reading me. Thank you!
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