Being a Blogger

(The reality)

I am a professional blogger. I used to be a preofessional scientist, so it still takes me by surprise that I changed my life path so dramatically.

You see, I was a good girl. I passed all my exams, went to university and got a sensible job in the health service. I rose through the ranks to the dizzying heights of CHIEF biomedical scientist. And then I had kids and realised that my life’s purpose was to care for them in the best way I possibly could. And that meant not having “a job”. So I quit.

I wasn’t upset about that, I always hated having to give up such a large chunk of my life to being at the hospital. It felt wrong. I wanted to be gardening, creating, cooking, travelling, tinkering with websites and a million other things that I couldn’t do because I was stuck at the hospital. I never wanted a job, ever. But I was a good girl so I did what was expected.

So I quit, moved to the other side of the world (because we couldn’t afford London on one junior chef’s salary) and got on with being a mum.

Being a mum is one of the hardest jobs in the world, particularly if you have a brain like mine that requires much stimulation. I’ll add that “having a job” gave my brain zero stimulation, tinkering with websites always did. I started tinkering in my 30s, I’m 100% self-taught and figuring it out was a big part of the fun.

I moved to the other side of the world for my kids. It wasn’t my choice, I hated it and still hate it. I want to go home. But I’m not allowed to say that in public because of the haters. I have to be very careful what I say because they come at you like a pack of blood-craved sharks. But there, I said it. It makes me very unhappy to be so far from home but it’s a financial necessity.

Around 2011, when the kids were about 5 and 7 and I finally could get short breaks from full-time mothering duties, I started tinkering again.

I made a blog, a website. It was fun. Within months that fun had made me thousands of dollars. Making money from having fun really got the dopamine flowing and my fun just multiplied.

Some 12 years later I have several websites, or blogs, I make good money, it’s still fun and still gives my brain a workout daily, or not, I can take breaks whenever I like.

It gives me physical and financial freedom, it allowed us to travel for almost 7 years, but I’m not fully free. I still can’t go home.

But the dark side of blogging is what I wanted to talk about, the hate. I tiptoe around topics, I walk on eggshells, trying not to trigger the haters, but inevitably I do from time to time.

These vile, despicable demons from Hell go for the jugular in comments on the website, in emails and on the “social” media. They are the scum of the Earth but all of us who make a living online have to just grow a tougher skin and try to let it wash.

I just read a very good book during an 8 day power cut. This is a quote. “The internet is a place sorely lacking in attachment manners or the rules of human engagement. We should not be surprised by the nastiness that can result. It can make the halls of high school look tame in comparison.”
And that is a completely accurate assessment.

Which is why I stopped really writing, I started sharing facts, not myself. I stopped appearing in video because I was told I had a “snooty voice”, I’m rarely in photos. I’m a magnet for hate.

I still love tinkering with websites and figuring out Google, but putting myself out there, no, I don’t. It’s not fun. The internet is a very dark place.