”Many thanks for sen­ding yo­ur samp­le blog text to Päi­vä­mies! We would like to in­vi­te you to start as a new on­li­ne blog­ger.”

I was so hap­py to read this email from the edi­tor of Päi­vä­mies. I humb­ly ac­cep­ted my new task.

I had no­ti­ced a few weeks ear­lier that new blog­gers were being rec­rui­ted for Päi­vä­mies. When I read the ad, I felt a small jolt in­si­de me. Would I dare to try? I left the pa­per open on the work­top, won­de­ring if it would call out to me la­ter. Yet, I clo­sed the pa­per a few days la­ter. No, this was not for me.

But when anot­her week had pas­sed, I be­gan to won­der if I could still find the is­sue of Päi­vä­mies with the rec­ruit­ment ad. I found it, tore out the ad and pos­ted it on the door of the frid­ge. I sec­ret­ly ho­ped one of the fa­mi­ly mem­bers would en­cou­ra­ge me and say, “Mom, why don’t you start wri­ting a blog?”

None of them said anyt­hing. I won­der if they even no­ti­ced the ad among all the im­por­tant no­tes on the frid­ge door. Right now, there are two den­tal ap­point­ments, one ad­d­ress of friends, al­to­get­her 23 mag­nets of our 10 kids, one week­ly sche­du­le that we have for­got­ten to fill in, one Mot­her’s Day card, a coup­le of dra­wings, and se­ve­ral unof­fi­ci­al-loo­king check­lists for va­ri­ous pur­po­ses.

I thought about the Päi­vä­mies blogs I had read. Of­ten, when I had star­ted re­a­ding one blog, I just went on re­a­ding one af­ter anot­her, be­cau­se they were all so good. I felt em­po­we­red by the blogs of mot­hers that I could ea­si­ly iden­ti­fy with. It was eye-ope­ning to read about the world of so­me­o­ne in a dif­fe­rent life si­tu­a­ti­on. I al­so paid at­ten­ti­on to the style of wri­ting. Did the wri­ters use stan­dard lan­gu­a­ge or spo­ken lan­gu­a­ge? Were they fac­tu­al or pla­ying with fan­ta­sy? So many dif­fe­rent texts, all of them so in­te­res­ting. So skil­l­ful­ly writ­ten!

The rough­ly torn ad from the pa­per was still on the door of the frid­ge, and I of­ten glan­ced at it in pas­sing. I would have li­ked to send in a samp­le text, but then again I felt I would not be a sui­tab­le per­son to write a blog. I had a draft text re­a­dy in my mind, but the thres­hold to send it was high.

I have been wri­ting all my life, re­cor­ding my ref­lec­ti­ons of life on the pa­ges of my di­a­ry. My first text was about a doll cal­led Eli­na. It was a fic­ti­ve story writ­ten in block let­ters with sen­ten­ces that cur­ved down­ward as the story con­ti­nu­ed. “Eli­na, just ima­gi­ne if I were Mary and you were baby Je­sus. I would be ter­rib­ly wor­ried when He­rod would try to kill you.” I was pro­ces­sing the emo­ti­ons arou­sed by a fa­mi­li­ar Bib­le story through wri­ting. I have con­ti­nu­ed to do so un­til to­day. Call it wri­ting the­ra­py.

Things of­ten set­t­le in­to a sto­ry­li­ne se­qu­en­ce in my mind. So did the mi­ra­cu­lous mat­ter that re­cent­ly hap­pe­ned: I was ac­cep­ted to study he­alth scien­ce, which had been my big­gest dream in life. It see­med un­be­lie­vab­le that I could start stu­dying just now when the ma­ter­ni­ty le­a­ve for my tenth child en­ded. The sche­du­le had been set up by the He­a­ven­ly Fat­her, I am sure.

I pro­ces­sed this won­der­ful mat­ter in­to a story in the wri­ting the­ra­py cham­ber of my brain. One day, half­way through comp­le­ting an as­sign­ment on di­gi­tal he­alth care, I wrote out the story and sent it to the rec­rui­ting edi­tor.

And here I am, wri­ting my first blog post. I hope that you, dear re­a­der, can re­la­te to my texts. Ma­y­be you can iden­ti­fy with them, draw peer sup­port from them, or be ins­pi­red by them. Most of all, I hope I can bring some joy to yo­ur life.

Text: Suvi Myl­ly­mä­ki

Trans­la­ti­on: Sirk­ka-Lii­sa Lei­no­nen

You will find the ori­gi­nal blog post here.