Mums' Days is ELEVEN!

Well, it’s 11 years today that I sat in our dining room in our little house in Blyth and decided to start a blog. You can read my first post here and laugh about it's ridiculous Gok references and over ambition here. 

Newly married. Newly pregnant. Newly unemployed. It was a weird time. But blogging and the community that surrounded it became something that really kept me company over the years.

Looking back over the 800+ posts I’ve written (which are currently LOST in the internet as I wasn’t technical enough to manage the platform change from Wordpress to Kajabi!! Any help to retrieve the lost blog posts would be gratefully received!!), I’m so glad I have this documentation of my life.

Life can feel so fleeting and like it goes so fast. But documenting it helps to fill in the blanks that the mind has forgotten and bring back a sense that time is moving at the right speed.

Driving home today, I was thinking about what picture to post and I actually have very few from the beginning of the blog - they’re not stored on my phone for some reason and, as I said before, the original blogs are currently dust bunnies in a corner of the inter web. But I remembered that I have some physical pregnancy photos from when I was having Reuben. 

I thought I’d take a selfie with the more appropriate of the two but I wasn’t expecting to feel so emotional at seeing them! They have hardly ever seen the light of day since the day I gave them to my ex. I always felt embarrassed that someone would see them and think I’m egotistical or just plain embarrass them because I’m sooooo naked! But wow, looking at them today. 11 years later. I could see it all. The vulnerability, the fear, the anticipation, the joy at being captured by the oh so talented Caroline and feeling beautiful at a time when EVERYTHING was changing and I felt and looked so different.

I look like a baby in the photos myself. I also look so calm. And while I couldn’t really prepare myself for what was coming, because let’s face it, you just can’t, I look like I knew I could handle it. 

I’ve been thinking a lot about confidence lately. From body confidence to life stuff and money, and I have lots more to come on the subject. But in this moment, I want to bottle the confidence I once felt so strongly. That I can handle what is coming. To have faith that it will be ok and I will be ok.

And I’ve also decided to put these pictures up in my room as a reminded. Regardless of who is in them and how naked they are, they are beautiful pieces of art that capture a moment in time that was full of unknowns but hope reins supreme.