If my memory is correct (and it probably isn’t), it’s been about a decade since last I blogged without getting paid to do so.

To those who are reading me (whew, just said a mouthful there) for the first time, that statement means nothing, but to the homies, The Peanut Gallery, the O.G.s…that’s insane. Unthinkable.

See, I’ve been a professional freelance writer for about 15 years now, but for the 10 or so years prior to 2008, I wrote practically every day, sometimes all day or damn near it, for free. Actually, if you consider Internet access, my computer and blog subscription costs, not to mention my time, low though its commercial value may have been at the time, I, in fact, paid other people so I could write.

Blogging was the start. In 2003, I followed my parents back to Shreveport after they retired (version 1.0). I had lived in Birmingham, AL, since my family moved there from East Texas in 1994, with quick layovers in Atlanta, GA, and Charleston, SC. I missed my friends, and Louisiana in general and Shreveport in particular were quite the culture shocks after having been gone so long (we moved away from Shreveport, where I was born, in 1985, when I was 8, though much of my mother’s family still lives in Northwest Louisiana).

Since I was a kid, big changes, i.e., big feelings, meant I needed to WRITE ALL THE WORDS. ALL OF THEM. AND SAY ALL THE THINGS about what was happening, why, and all my feeeeeeeelings re. all of it, and the shift back to Shreveport triggered that urge powerfully. At first, I wrote emails, then a friend mentioned I should start a blog. A blog? I thought. But a blog is the reason I eventually stopped asking myself, “But what if it all goes wrong?” and started asking, “But what if it all works out?”

For a while, anyway.

From that humble little LiveJournal (username: clothes_slut) came the beginnings of an entire career as a freelance journalist, blogger, editor and, eventually, photographer. After a few years, I flew the coop of LiveJournal and started MrsBachelorGirl.net (née BachelorGirl.net). Readership was never huge – though I initially had other ideas, ad sales turned out to be much more trouble than they were worth. I was, once again, paying others so I could write, but, looking back, it was refreshing to have a space wherein, creatively speaking, I didn’t have to answer to anyone but myself and a few dozen loyal readers.

And the loyal readers? Some of the best things to ever happen to me. Their friendship and encouragement kept me going whenever I convinced myself that blogging was, at best, a masturbatory exercise for emotionally needy writers. My best friend is a physician, and my partner is a patent attorney. These are women who change the world in very tangible ways on a near-daily basis. And while I firmly believe storytelling to be one of humanity’s most sacred art forms, it’s sometimes difficult to feel like a robustly contributing member of society when 85 percent of your workdays involve glaring at a computer screen while banging on a keyboard in your pajamas.

But all that changed the moment someone remarked, “Hey, I read your blog the other day. That post was hilarious,” or “that post really made me consider my position” or “I’m still thinking about what you wrote.” What’s a better job than telling compelling stories through words, pictures or both? Nothing, that’s what. For me, that’s like a license to kill.

The problem was the negative comments. I’m not gonna front here: At first, they could easily ruin my whole day. But, gradually, I got better at managing my reactions to them. When I started to take them more seriously was after I had my older child, my daughter, Harper. Even though very few, if any, comments had to do with her or my parenting, it seemed increasingly…uncomfortable putting stories about her on the Internet.

(Before I begin this next part: I have many writer and content-creator friends with kids under 18 who’ve wrestled with these issues and come to different conclusions than I did about what’s best for their families, and I could not respect their choices more. This also seems a good time to state explicitly that I’m very much a “do what’s right for YOUR family” kind of person. When I talk about how my family did/does things, it’s NEVER intended as an object lesson in How to Life Correctly. Like practically all parents, there are plenty of things I wish I’d handled differently, and I don’t mind saying so.)

It was one thing when Harper was a baby. Give or take a few personality quirks, all babies behave more or less the same way, depending on their health and stage of development, and pretty much all babies do the same things: befoul themselves and, often, their caregivers; eat noisily, sloppily and/or with great gusto; and nap cutely. Toddlers make gleeful messes; scream with blind rage over injustices no one else can comprehend; and explore their worlds in ways that are sometimes so adorable it physically hurts. Harper’s baby and toddler stories weren’t really about her, they were about my reactions to all of the above, et al.

As she got older, it occurred to me, by bits and pieces, that my children’s stories aren’t mine to tell. I can’t wait to see how they decide to tell them, but my blog and my words ain’t it. I know it may seem a little backward – they’re both old enough to know about the Internet and give some level of consent, so now you’re going to stop writing about them? – but their lives now are mostly about them, not me.

Besides, I had a photography business to run along with my other pursuits, so it made sense to me at the time to retire MrsBachelorGirl.net and all that came before it.

That pretty much catches us up to where we are now: a new beginning. For the O.G.s: The Guy and I decided last May to divorce. We are much happier and healthier as co-parents than spouses. The kids are amazing, and we both get to see them as often as we (including them) want. We’re still figuring out how to be this new kind of family, but we’re all doing our best and getting it right most of the time. Although the end came abruptly, it was a long time coming, and I will always think of it as the gift I never would’ve given myself.

So begins Life 2.0. A new creation from the ashes of the past, I’m going to do my best to make this second act of my life a beautiful work of art. Sure, I’m going to make mistakes and get off-topic sometimes, but that’s where the good stuff lives, right?

After all, no funny blog post ever started with a perfect day.