I Still Haven’t Recovered From BlogHer ’11

Alternate title: I left my spirit in San Diego.

I’ve been home for over two days now and while I’ve settled back into my home routine again, everything still feels a little off.

Part of the problem is that summer camp ended last Friday for Cordy and Mira. Why the summer programs in our city choose to end two and a half weeks before the start of school is unknown to me, but it’s intensely frustrating when you work and have to find childcare coverage for that short period of time.

Mira is attending another camp for just this week, at a premium cost of course. Which leaves Cordy at home with me during the day, while I try to get enough sleep to function at work that night. Cordy has learned how to operate the remote control to choose cartoons to watch on Netflix, and so our routine involves me napping on the couch while she reads books and watches TV and wakes me up for lunch. Not perfect, but it works. Next week will be a different story.

I’m still processing so much from my trip to BlogHer. New connections were made. Old friendships were reaffirmed. I spent time in a city where the weather is always perfect and the air is light and humidity-free. I danced until my feet ached and laughed until my sides hurt. And I cried when I had to leave all of these wonderful people so that we could return to our different parts of the world.

Regular Folks
Can’t miss me – I’m the very white one

Now I’m home, still too tired and too busy to unpack, and feeling lost in the mundane activities of my life.

More to come when the jet lag wears off from my soul.



Double Agent

As I prepare for BlogHer this week, I’ve been bubbling over with excitement about seeing old friends and immersing myself in 5 days of IRL blogging heaven. This has occasionally resulted in my having to explain my excitement to those around me, followed by not taking their strange looks personally.

It’s hard to be a blogger, yo.

I often feel like I’m living two lives. One life is a nurse, working a steady full-time job, going to the grocery, picking my kids up from summer camp, sitting through business meetings at work, doing laundry, keeping strong opinions to myself, occasionally meeting up with friends, and watching TV with my husband in the evenings.

But then there’s my other life. In that life I write about my inner thoughts on the internet, converse with friends I know in person and those I’ve never met across the globe, share openly my struggles with ADD and my daughter’s autism, attend conferences of like-minded geeky people who like to talk with each other on the internet, leverage my virtual soapbox to give my opinion on products and services and provide feedback directly to big companies that otherwise wouldn’t notice me, occasionally discuss money, politics, religion or some other topic we’re not supposed to discuss in polite company, and freely dance my way across social media platforms, interacting with those who cross my path.

My other life sure seems like a lot more fun sometimes.

I often look at my two separate-but-not-equal lives and wonder which one is the real me? Or are they both different parts of me, like the Freudian id and ego?

My daily life requires me to constantly censor myself to fit in, molding every action and word to fit in with what is expected of me. Some of it is the real me, but parts are an act, an elaborate character I play when the need arises. Stick to the superficial when interacting with others in public, bury deep your true feelings so as not to offend anyone, try to blend with the crowd. And for goodness sakes, don’t talk about your blog or anything geeky, lest you be branded a complete weirdo!

In college, I was praised by my sorority (wha? yes, I was in a sorority – stop laughing) for being great at the small-talk required during rush. But small talk was easy; scripted conversation starters with a mental list of how to respond to various answers made it a game. Ask me to have more in-depth conversations, though, and the conversations quickly deteriorated as I lost my ability to be chatty and instead panicked.

Online I still must censor myself, but in a different way. Here I hide specifics of the superficial details: my daily schedule, where my children attend school, details about my job, etc. Yet here my inner soul is on display, and writing serves as an outlet for that part of me that is kept bottled up every day. My interactions here are with people who I share something in common with on a more personal level, instead of the superficial level of proximity. On my blog, I don’t feel the need to hold back on my opinions – anyone who reads them is here in my space and free to leave if they disagree.

So which is the real me? Blogging conferences always put this to the test. My online self is on display in person, interacting real-time with those I enjoy talking to online. Only without the luxury of taking the time to craft a thought-provoking or witty response. (There’s no backspace key in real life.) I always worry I’m going to disappoint people who know my online persona once they meet the physical person. Depending on what point of the day you meet me, I could be shy or very outgoing – it all depends on how overwhelmed I am at the moment.

But thankfully, most people attending BlogHer will be feeling the same way. From past experience, I know that once the initial nervous jitters pass, I find it very freeing to let my two halves loose at the same time. BlogHer makes it possible to be yourself – whichever blend of “you” is the one you feel most comfortable with.

Hopefully I’ll be seeing some of you there this week. If we haven’t met yet, I hope we’ll find the chance to say hello at some point.



Social Media Introduces, BlogHer Unites

Disclaimer: if you didn’t attend BlogHer, I apologize in advance for the love fest about to follow. It doesn’t mean that you aren’t special to me, too. You just need to live closer.

I think that not only do I need a disclaimer to my BlogHer recap every year, but I also need my own personal disclaimer when I return from BlogHer. Something like Disclaimer: Expect me to be moody, pouty, low-energy and have at least one explosive crying fit post-BlogHer. Placate with kind words and chocolates for one week until back to normal.

Because honestly? After spending several days with friends – many of whom I only get to see once a year – I’m often hit with a mild depression when it’s over and I have to return to my normal life.

This year, on the last day of BlogHer, I sent out a tweet that simply stated: “I don’t want to go back to my real life tomorrow. I like my virtual life & friends too much. #BlogHer10” 

Soon after, one of my twitter followers responded with, “@mommystory That’s kind of a sad commentary on social media.”

I was puzzled. Clearly he didn’t get it, and it forced me to think about what I had written and why I felt that way.

It wasn’t a sad commentary on social media at all. Instead, it was a sparkly, shining example of the good that can be found in social media, all brought together in one conference.

My “real life” is filled with a lot of ordinary, with a smattering of extraordinary here and there. I do a lot of mundane tasks each day: I go to work, I do chores, I drive my kids to and from activities, I buy groceries, etc. I don’t get the chance to talk to representatives of major corporations or government agencies on a regular basis. When I buy my groceries at Kroger, the cashier doesn’t care what I think of the store’s expansion of their organic section. I doubt my daughter’s school principal will want to make a video of me sharing my views of the district’s special needs program to then present to the superintendant.

But with social media, my little voice is given a megaphone to be heard loud and clear, and no louder than at BlogHer, where companies and bloggers come together. I was interviewed by three huge companies at BlogHer this year (two of the videos are online), and had the chance to speak with several more. My feedback (along with that of other bloggers) a few years ago helped guide a company to create a better product that they presented to us last year at BlogHer. When Aaron was laid off in 2008 and we found ourselves without health insurance, CNN contacted me and our story was one of several that would be an early warning of what was to become the recession.

Our voices do have power, especially when used together. At home I may be a shy nurse, going back and forth to work and quietly raising my daughters in Columbus, Ohio, but with social media I have the opportunity to yell and be heard around the world. I am a smart person with good ideas (not trying to brag, I swear) and my voice shouldn’t be limited to Columbus, Ohio. With social media, it doesn’t have to be.

As for missing my “virtual” friends, I’ll just say that it’s very possible to miss someone you see once a year just as much as someone you see every day. In my “real life” I do have a few best friends and several other good friends that I share many interests with. But the majority of my real life connections are based primarily on geography. The pool of potential friends and acquaintances is limited by distance and location.

I grew up in a small Ohio town and making friends in my early years was terribly hard. I had little in common with my classmates and just didn’t fit in. But what could I do? There weren’t that many other kids my age, leaving me with a couple of friends who had some shared interests and otherwise a class full of people who simply didn’t understand me.

Online, though? My social net is so, so wide. You can bet that I’m going to find other moms who understand what it’s like to have a child on the spectrum and who also have a love of showtunes and Lady Gaga. (And maybe have even dressed up in renaissance clothing, too.) The pool of like-minded (or at least complimentary) individuals is exponentially larger. I can find my tribe beyond the boundaries of city limits and miles.I now have friends in California, Florida, Massachusetts, Minnesota, Canada and everywhere in-between.

When I’m at BlogHer and can’t make it across the lobby of the hotel in under an hour because I keep running into people I love, I’m reminded of how thankful I am to social media for introducing me to these intelligent, interesting and strong women (and a few men). The hugs I gave out were absolutely genuine and from the heart. I treasured each spontaneous conversation I participated in, soaked in my time strolling New York with women I usually only see through a computer screen. When my schedule forced me elsewhere, I felt awful saying goodbye to whoever I was with, worried that we wouldn’t get another chance to chat that weekend.

It didn’t matter that we met online – in person we were like old friends, completely comfortable with each other with no pretense of formality. After all – we’ve already bared our souls on our blogs, right? If anything, this was a chance to deepen friendships, sharing personal stories that are too personal even for our blogs. And once those connections are made – sharing love, heartache, tragedy, hopes, fears – you don’t want to let go.

So yeah, I didn’t want to leave BlogHer. I didn’t want to put down that megaphone. And I didn’t want to leave good friends behind with only the hope that we would see each other again soon – maybe next month if they live in or near Ohio, maybe at another conference, maybe next year or longer.

I only wish I could find a way to merge my virtual life into my real life, but I doubt I can put up a good enough argument for everyone to move to Ohio. These voices, these personalities – who would want to leave them all behind?

So maybe my twitter follower misunderstood me. I do love my friends and family in my “real life” and I’m glad to be back to some of my routine (not the chores, that’s for sure), but four days is not enough time to cram a year’s worth of opportunity and friendship into face-time.

It was an awesome BlogHer. And I can’t wait to see all of you again soon.

Photo credit: Jenna Hatfield

  Photo credit: Michelle Lane

 (and everyone else I didn’t get photos with!)


I’m Surprised I’m Not Still in Buffalo, NY

So yeah.

BlogHer.

These recaps are always hard to write. So let me start from the end of my trip and work my way to the beginning.

I’m thankful I got home at all.

My 13 hour train ride home from BlogHer and New York City started fine. It was crowded, and my cell signal was poor as usual, but Heather and I settled in for our long ride, not expecting any hiccups. I planned my next day, expecting to stop in to work to finish a report before going home to unpack and rest. After all, the train was supposed to drop us off around 4am – plenty of time to get the morning report done for work and still enjoy a full day off.

And then we hit Buffalo, NY.

It even looks like a horror movie, doesn’t it?

At this point it was close to midnight, and I had been drifting between awake and wanting to sleep. Turns out, I don’t sleep well on trains. Or cars. Or anything taking me from one place to another. After about thirty minutes, I started to notice that we had not moved in awhile, and found this to be a little odd. A full thirty minutes after that, an Amtrak employee appeared to tell us that there was a freight train derailment in Ohio, and so at the moment we were stuck there until they could find a way to get us around it.

Yep, no contingency plan on their part. For a train that runs on a track with freight trains, they have no contingency plans in place in case a train, oh, goes off its track. Because that never happens, right?

I forgot to mention that our train car must have been a meat locker in another life, because even with long pants, socks and a fleece blanket, I was still freezing. So I took the opportunity to get off the train at the station to bask in the warm, soupy night air of Buffalo. When I asked an employee how long this would take, he shrugged his shoulders and told me he didn’t know, and it would likely take at least four hours or so.

Four hours to get moving again. I should point out that Cleveland wasn’t quite a four hour drive from that station. I could drive home faster than Amtrak could get me there.

At that point I was exhausted and losing my cool. I didn’t want to be stranded in Buffalo all night, so I asked the station employee to find me a rental car. It would cost more, but at least I’d be home sooner. He laughed at me. And then told me, “It’s Sunday and it’s after midnight [which actually means it’s Monday, buddy] – you can’t get that here!”

Trying to come to terms with being stranded without any other transportation, I then had to choke back anger when they announced they were getting several taxis to transport those going to Erie, PA. You can find a taxi at 2am, but you can’t get me a rental car?

Heather had more calmly accepted our fate, but really didn’t want to go back into the icebox. She didn’t bring a blanket, and her sweater just wasn’t enough to keep warm. She asked an employee if they could warm up the car, and he told her the A/C had two settings – on or off – and it got hot and smelly in there quickly if they turned it off. She tried to plead that it was way too cold, but his only reply was, “Some people would kill for this kind of cold!”

Uh, I think he was missing the point.

She then asked for a blanket, and this turned into another fiasco. First we were told there were no blankets available because people had stolen them all 15 years ago. When asked about the souvenir blankets for sale in the Cafe car, she was told that the woman with the keys was sleeping and they wouldn’t wake her up.

(At this point I should also mention that we had no access to anything but vending machines in the station for food/drink, while the Amtrak employees ordered out for pizza and ate it in front of us. Stay classy, Amtrak!)

Heather became very angry about the blanket situation, all while we tweeted the events as they happened. They seemed to be getting nervous by our social media ranting, and finally an employee said he had a solution and led Heather back to the dining car. She emerged with several small disposable paper tablecloths for us to use as blankets. Thin paper tablecloths that smelled like fry grease, to be exact. It would take two tablecloths to provide enough coverage for one person. Ick.

Then everyone going to the stop after Erie (not us – we were the stop after that one) was gathered and told they would be taken to their station aboard a chartered bus. Their belongings were pulled off the train and they quickly left on their chartered bus. Again, you can get a taxi at 2am and a chartered bus at 3:30am, but you can’t find me a rental car?

Sometime close to 5am, we finally were loaded back into the train and on our way. Pure exhaustion hit at this point, and I achieved the impossible dream of a little sleep, gathered in 10 minute increments here and there.

As we hit hour 19 of our 13-hour Amtrak trip, we knew we were getting close to the station. But we didn’t get much warning. Two minutes before the train stopped, an Amtrak employee came to us and told us our stop was coming and to get our stuff together quickly. Two minutes.

I walked to the back of the car to retrieve my large suitcase, only to see the employee grabbing all of our other stuff and getting it up to the door as fast as possible. I stopped back at my seat to make sure I didn’t forget anything, but another employee came up from behind, took my large suitcase from me, and started to gently push me towards the door, telling me I needed to go. I wondered if they were going to throw us off while the train was still moving?

The train came to a stop and a second later the door flew open and we were hustled off the train. For keeping us on there so long, they certainly were in a rush to get rid of us in the end! Of course, my journey wasn’t over yet, as I still had a two hour drive to get back to Columbus. It was after 2pm by the time I finally reached my house.

This was my first Amtrak experience, and honestly it has made me rethink my fear of flying. The trip there wasn’t as bad, although the bathrooms were in such miserable shape that I learned I could hold my breath, pee, and wash my hands in under 60 seconds. But 19 hours on a train was unbearable. I realized at one point that I could have driven from New York to Ohio, then back to New York again in the time I spent on the train. And even had time to stop for a few meals, too.

I wanted to like traveling by train, but I don’t know if I’ll ever do it again. I traveled by train all the time when I spent a summer in England and I loved the experience, but the American version leaves a lot to be desired.

Next up: I really will write about BlogHer. It’s always hard to write about it when you’re still processing such an incredible conference, but I will give you my shortest summary as a teaser: it was better than BlogHer 09.



Do Not Be Alarmed

If you’re one of those people who has a sharp eye for detail, you might notice that this little blog has slimmed down slightly, at least where the address is concerned. I decided that after 5 years, it was time to drop the unsightly blogspot from the middle and just be http://www.amommystory.com/.

It fit better on my business cards for BlogHer, too.

Hopefully this transition is seamless, but if there are any hiccups, please let me know. I’m told that any links to old posts or feeds will still automatically redirect to their proper places. I’ll admit I have no idea how it works – I’m impressed that I managed to redirect the domain at all without calling for help.

And hey, maybe this transition to a slightly more professional-looking domain name will result in a slightly more professional blog?

Nah.

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