Where's the Nerd in Nerd & Nurturer?

I realized something the other day: I have been overly concerned with turning this blog into something that appeals to a specific audience, namely the homeschooling, environmentally-conscious super-mom crowd. The problem? I am absolutely NOT a super-mom and, though at least one or two trains of my thoughts are always centered on my child and homeschooling, I'm not a one, two, or even three-trick pony.  ...and why would I want to be? I'm not blogging for money (notice there are no ads on this page - yeah, I did that on purpose because I kind of hate the corporate-driven society we live in)...I'm writing a personal blog and the majority of my audience, at the moment, is family/friends.  I would like to have a wider audience at some point because I love to write and I get an odd exhilaration from others reading that writing, but none of that matters if my writing is not true to myself...

So why have I been doing this? Well, this is my second blog. The first didn't work out very well at all - I got bored with it and completely abandoned it, which was ok because only a couple of friends read it anyway. When I was writing that first blog, though, I asked a friend, also a blogger, for advice.  She told me I needed to look for a niche I could appeal to and then target that niche... I think, if I wanted to become famous (and she kinda sorta is now, so clearly it worked for her), that might have been good advice.  For me, though, I'm not an expert at any one thing - I am what I always wanted to be: a smart, easily distractable Jill-of-all-trades who loves learning so much that I am constantly experimenting and trying new things... As a result, though, I would have a hard time sustaining a blog about just one or two things and lately, I realized I have been doing exactly that!

In the process, I've been hiding a whole host of other aspects to my personality:

For instance, I named this blog "Nerd & Nurturer," but all I've been writing about is my nurturing side. The funny thing is, I never considered myself a particularly nurturing type - that aspect of my personality is new to me since I had the J-Rex 7 1/2 years ago.  This past year, especially, I feel as if I've been going through a transformation from Maiden to Mother (trust me, it definitely does not happen right away when you have a kid, not for everyone), which partially explains why I've focused so much on this aspect of things. In a sense, my tendency to nurture is simply my latest personal experiment.

There is another aspect of my having ignored the Nerd in this blog, though...an aspect that irks the feminist in me even as I acknowledge it comes from my own choices: I'm afraid of alienating the mommy-types with my non-mommy stuff and afraid of alienating the nerds/geeks/etc. with my mommy-stuff.  (Really? Where do I get these kinds of limiting thoughts? From an overly-specialized society, probably.)

Now, I realize that is a ridiculous way to feel.  If I can be as much of a nerdy, geeky, political, slightly gothy hippie chick as I am while simultaneously being a passionate, homeschooling mom, why can't there be others as complex as me?  I know there are, because some of them are my friends (My girl over at http://solinoxenterprises.com/ is one of them).

We are all incredibly complex individuals and I think Society, so busy trying to fit us all into boxes, makes us feel as if we have to pretend to be just one aspect of ourselves in each situation we find ourselves in - it may be a different aspect for each situation, but what we portray to world about ourselves is often only a small sliver of who we are.  I no longer want to participate in this social lie.

So, once again, I am freeing myself a little bit more in this blog.  ...freeing myself to stop feeling as though I have to specialize.  ...freeing myself to write about whatever might be on my mind, not just homeschool or gardening.  ...even freeing myself to write a long, silly blog post about the changing content balance of my future blog posts! Woot!