Wednesday, April 02, 2014

A Difficult Fall

Part of the reason I stopped blogging was that I was experiencing a difficult fall.  In the past, I likely would have blogged more as a way to sort through all the difficulties.  This past fall a lot was happening, a lot changing.  I actually stopped writing for a while.  There was too much to process.  Writing didn't help, as it usually does, so I stopped.  I turned inward and relied on some good friends to help me sort everything out.  I focused as much as I could on my family and kept moving.  I'd like to say that the difficult things I was experiencing--or more accurately, that my family was experiencing--have passed.  In some ways, they have.  In other ways, we're still sorting through these experiences.  I'm finally in a place in which I feel better prepared to write, in which I feel that writing will help.  That is, primarily, why I'm back. 

I also feel as though my reasons for blogging have changed.  I'm less interested in finding a community than I once was.  I will likely continue to tag my posts as I write them, more out of habit than anything else, but I'm not as concerned with how others will respond to my thoughts.  That begs the question: why blog, as it is, ostensibly, public?  The answer is that blogging is a form of journalling for me, although I recognize it is a public journal.  I could easily just write in a journal, even one I create on my computer, which I occasionally do.  I have returned to blogging because the kind of writing I do here feels different.  I'm not sure I can explain it in more depth than that, and I'm not sure I want to.  The writing, this time, is more out of necessity, out of my need to put things down in a tangible way, as I process my thoughts and experiences. 

2 comments:

L said...

Even if you're not seeking for a community anymore* I think that the assumption that you're writing for "an audience" that the blog provides, regardless of whether anyone is reading or not, makes the writing different. Phew, what a long sentence... ;-) I'm glad that you're at a point where writing seems to help. Sometimes I feel like I can't write either and just don't blog, but more often than not it's the opposite.

Oh, and I do have multiple journals, one for short daily entries (that I write all at once on the weekend) and one that I hardly ever use, in which I write in more depth. I do rely on my blog for journaling too, though! I think it's a good medium.

I write too much, sorry... that's who I am, though, can't help it!

*as I, unfortunately, still am -- and now blogging doesn't seem to be serving this function anymore, people are too busy tweeting or facebooking or instagramming... :(

L said...

P.S. And I'm sorry that you had a difficult fall & glad to hear that things are better and to have you back!