I admire bloggers who stick with it. Honestly, I do. Posting day after day. I suppose I have things to say every day, but I've come up against two things. For one, I began grad school last month. I am five weeks in and totally in love. The thing about it is, you aren't ever really done. If you are caught up on reading for this week, you better work ahead for next week because there is also probably a paper coming up, or a professor will email you extra reading, or there will be some event happening on campus during your scheduled study time. I've had a really difficult time putting down my work to see friends, watch a movie, take a run, et cetera. Most days I spend at least six hours on school work. After doing that this past weekend and waking up with a headache today, I gave myself permission for a "day off." I still worked for three hours. And the worst and best part is that sometimes this happens because I can't distinguish work from play. Grad school has just put an intense focus and rigor to the things I already found interesting. So if I'm assigned reading and writing on the 1996 PRWORA, I do it... and then I Google and read more about it. And then before I know it I'm down a rabbit hole, watching a documentary and emailing my congresswoman about something that pisses me off. And it's all school work. And I live and breathe it right now.
Secondly, this blog began with a narrowed focus: grief. Living with death. Continuing to forge an adulthood while healing childhood wounds. I've felt less inclined to write about these things recently because, as stated above, I'm busy. But also, I've been doing a great deal of healing. And unlike last summer when I started this blog, I don't feel like every day is a battle. My depression has greatly decreased, and not every incident seems to be related to my mother's death. All good things. But good things often don't make good writing. It may have been Hemingway who said something about creative geniuses all being a bit melancholy (that sounds very Hemingway, anyway). There is some truth to that, I believe.
Sometimes I think about how much I want my children to have. And then I think, "But what will they write or paint or dance or compose about, if I give them a perfect childhood?" Is that insane?
I think blogging will never really be the perfect platform for me. I write when I'm moved to, and I don't care enough about traffic to fill the space with a silly cat video if I don't have anything to say. I just don't write. But I do miss writing for the digital abyss. So maybe I'll try to come around more often.
The senate passed VAWA today. My faith is a bit restored.
