Blogger Stories: Rita Arens

Blogs do more than just connect people-to-people. Rita Arens' story is about the blogoshere as a village with people from all over the world who help her feel a little less alone. A little less lonely. While at the same time providing a creative outlet for her talented and heartwarming writing.

Blogger Story Teller: Rita Arens, Surrender, Dorothy

When the little angel was two months old, I started blogging.  I have never been a mother before. I am the kind of person who always researches everything.  I was valedictorian of my graduating class in high school.  I graduated from the University of Iowa in three and a half years.  I couldn't wait to get out  there and prove to the world that I knew what I was doing.

I kept a pregnancy journal, fastidiously.  I recorded every pound I gained, every pretzel I threw up, every drink I denied myself.  I have always journaled.  I wrote down every emotion I had, every man who broke my heart, every morsel of food I didn't eat when I was anorexic from 1992 to 1994.

I keep lists.
I have a mission statement for myself.
I have goals.
I was going to be the perfect mother.

Then came the days of darkness, the days when the little angel was just a baby and my best friend was going through a painful divorce, and another friend's husband had an affair and left her and another friend suffered painful sinus infection after sinus infection through her own first pregnancy and was too scared to take any medicine.

I had this baby, but my best friends were still jumping out of airplanes and questioning why I wouldn't join them, in the airplane, at the bar. I felt so alone.

So I blogged.

And I read other people's words.  Other people's experiences.  And I felt better. I realized there were other women like me, who depended on the Internet as a lifeline. L. shared with me a painful time in her life when she used the ethernet to pump her blood for her, to keep her going.

I've seen you out there, in my stats.  I've seen you in North Carolina, in New York, in Lawrence, in Iowa City. I've seen you in Korea. I've seen you in Ireland and Australia. So many nights when I've been up at three in the morning, Kansas City time, and I've pictured you all, there, comforting your babies while I comforted mine, and it made me feel stronger to know you were there. That at three in the morning, Kansas City time, one of you is always awake.

Thank you, Internet.

Thank you for being my village.

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