Priorities

This month has been a little crazy for me. Starting with the advent of Cesarean Awareness Month, I found myself launched headlong into a flurry of birth/breastfeeding/child care/health/religion/fertility/circumcision/feminism articles, attitudes, and advocacies. Some of my notions have been challenged, my perspective has been checked and shifted, and I find that in three weeks I've become a different person, a different advocate, and I hope a better both. (I know that's grammatically awkward, but work with me here.) I firmed up many of my beliefs and stances, I've found others like myself in many ways, spread the word on some causes, and realized that others I could live without jumping in.

Twitter and Facebook have played huge roles in all of this, sweeping me up in media scandals, bringing whole communities and movements to light, and introducing me to dozens of new people involved in the same causes I am. The internet feels like a much more vast place today than it did a month ago, even though intellectually I know it's almost boundless. Heck, I'm something of a blogger now, which I really wasn't before. I've been re-Retweeted by my favorite magazine and #FF'd for being "Here to empower women", both of which were kind of mind blowing.  I'm just a tiny corner of the web, a sole proprietor who's just passionate about bringing children into the world.

That sole proprietorship is what I find myself considering now.  I find the Twitter/Blog info-and-opinion-stream fascinating and informative and lively and... really, really hectic.  I tend to get up in the morning, check over the dozens (if not hundreds) of tweets and blogs my list has accumulated while I slept, tab up about 5-8 of them and start reading, while new ones are constantly coming in.  I am easily distracted, so I end up spending the majority of my days of late going through articles.  I currently have seven in my tabs to go through.  It's just too much.

I'm not a professional blogger or tweeter.  I'm a massage therapist and I should be concentrating on that, and completing my various in-process certifications.  There's so much to learn in this world, so much knowledge to be gained, and I find myself running frantically to catch up to it, but it goes too fast, so I'm going to stop.  I'm going to go through my Facebook and Twitter (especially my Twitter) and simplify my life a little.

There's a lot of big battles out there, for birth, for breasts, for bonding, for bodies, for baby boys, for all babies, for families; a great many of them are uphill.  I'm still going to be involved with these battles, but I'm going to be spending a lot less time online to do it.

I need to expand in my local area, especially, and fight those battles here.  So here's to a formative three weeks and moving forward with new priorities.