The Weirdness of Not Going to BlogHer
This is the first year since 2008 that I’m not going to BlogHer. It feels very weird to be reading about everyone else getting ready to go and not packing myself. I mean, I know the vast majority of people reading this blog experience that yearly. But consider how odd you would feel if you were reading about all of your classmates returning to school, and you were staying home for some reason. Wouldn’t you feel out-of-sorts?
The best way I can describe what it is like to be at BlogHer is to compare it to Alice’s foray into Wonderland. You feel as if you’ve fallen through the computer screen, into a world with interesting people and good food and clean sheets (with maybe a little bit of fretting about home at the same time). You’ll be talking to someone, and then their name tag will flip around and you’ll realize that this is the author of a blog you read, or you’ll strike up a conversation with the person behind you as you wait for an open stall in the bathroom, and you’ll end up finding a new favourite blogger.
There is an energy there, an energy that you can pocket and take with you out of the conference, which is a rarity these days. Everything moves so quickly online that just when you think you’ve found your groove, everything shifts and you’re looking for it again. But I walk out of that conference with blog ideas and project ideas and new things to add to my space or try out or people to partner with or book topics. And that buzzing doesn’t die down the moment I step onto the plane; it’s a soft denouement that stays with me through the fall and into the winter.
So it’s weird to not be in San Jose this week.
I will be following along from home. Reading the tweets and looking at pictures. And joining the at-home Skype group (and you can too). I’ll be celebrating some family birthdays and glad that I’m here to experience that. And I’ll be planning to be back at BlogHer next summer.
But for everyone who is going this year, you’re so lucky. It’s a wonderful experience. Enjoy every second of it.
16 comments
It does feel weird… I have had such mixed feelings about not getting there this year. I know all the reasons I decided to stay home and they are good ones. However, it is still bittersweet to be following from a far. I am grateful for social media, as it helps so many of us who aren’t in San Jose to feel more like we’re there. I don’t know what my future will bring, as it relates to BlogHer conferences, but I am glad I got experience BlogHer`12 and BlogHer`13 with you. xoxo
One time. One time I had tickets to BlogHer in NYC. I had to sell them after I got laid off and figured I couldn’t afford the hotel. So…yeah, know that feeling very very very well. I hope to someday get to go through the looking glass. 😉
I’m right there with you. It feels totally yuck not to be there. I know it was the right call for my family but Blergh. I can’t even claim to be a blogger anymore but the energy really does carry me through the year.
Because I live just an hour south (and have friends and family there), I was certain I would be attending my very first BlogHer. But, there was just too much going on (schedule-wise and financially) to swing it. I’m sad and feel like I’m definitely missing out on this experience that I’ve been waiting for for so long. Oh, well. We can all grieve together. 🙂
Correction: I live an hour north. Geez. Someone get me some more coffee over here.
I keep going back and forth about whether I want to go to BlogHer sometime, but I think it is something I need to experience at least once. Maybe next time it is in NYC. I, too, will be following along via twitter and posts by friends who are there.
I’m not going either. I didn’t go last year. I’m not sure I’ll ever go again. I went three times and all three times it was fine. But I’m strangely over it.
*sniff* Missing you already!
I suppose this means my Twitterversary is happening about now?
I’d love to go some day. But man……… so much effort to go lol
i hear you. i’m not going either. 🙁
maybe next year, especially if it’s in NY again!
Hi from ICLW. Maybe one of these years after my new baby is grown up a bit I’ll go and see what it is all about.
So, why aren’t you going?
There’s a Skype group?? (Because you know much as Blogher sounds great it is an *awfully* long way away…)
I really wish you were going to be there. (How is it that the year I finally get to go is the first time in 7 years that you don’t!?)
I wish we were there, too … Skype is cool and all, but oddly enough, there’s something about the physical presence of that many virtual lives and voices that is inspirational to me. *sending love*