I’m in this place in my life where I’m allowing myself to break my own promises. And it feels great.

Example: I’m striving to go to yoga 5 days a week. Some days I plan to go and feel…eh. I’m now saying, “Susan, you don’t have to go. It’s ok. It’s ooooookaaaaaay.”

And it is.

Or the conference I will be attending this week. I was going to a session today, but suddenly realized I didn’t want to. So I allowed myself not to go.

I realize I’ve been hard on myself and forced myself to do things I didn’t want to. But now my philosophy is: if it’s more stressful to do this thing than not, I will not do it.

Feels pretty good. Are you with me on this? What can you forgive yourself for not doing?

I blog. I tweet. I use Facebook for business. But my local friends don’t exactly get what it is I do.

But at Type A Mom Conference, I’m surrounded people who feel the same. We all clack on our laptops while listening to speakers. We check in on Foursquare while bonding over a beer. We lament that we feel like outcasts in our local communities, and agree that we are kindred spirits at these blogging conferences.

When one of us has a crisis and is brave enough to stand up in front of a crowd to share it, we embrace her. We may never see her again, but she is one of us, and that’s enough to provide support.

Once we leave, some of us keep in touch via Facebook, Twitter and email. Others read each others’ blogs. Some, we lose touch with (at least until next year’s conference).

And it makes it all worth while. When I wear a Twitter shirt to pick up Max at school and I get no recognition, when I get asked “What’s a blog?” from friends, when people roll their eyes that I spend part of my day using social media, I remember that I do have friends that get it. So I tweet out some love and feel better.

Now that we’re full swing into first grade, things are different, and I’m sad. My two closest San Diego buddies are busy: one went back to work after a few years off and the other is in nursing school. We used to take the kids to the park after school every day. Now we come home. I miss catching up and letting off steam.

Max loves first grade, by the way. I think he has a crush on his teacher. I told him when you like a teacher, you give her an apple. We don’t have apples but we have peaches, so he said, “I’ll give her a peach. That means I really really like her.”

No girlfriends as of yet. His betrothed, Samantha, slapped him the other day (I think she was following suit to what another girl did) so not sure if the nuptials are still on.