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.
