When My Blog Died

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EKGgreenI want to file an official complaint as a subscriber to the Holistic Wayfarer for going MIA on us. (Completely forgetting she’s been out week after week with his son while keeping the lessons going.) You need to blog again, be reminded there are good people all over the world. They want to hear from you. When you don’t blog for a while, you crawl into yourself and scowl about the people who are !@#!. You become deeper, happier, and look out when you engage your readers. You should take a few days off school, give T a break, and just BLOG.

~ Mr. Wayfarer last night

Tenny_studio2015C(Gasp. Break??)

Where I’ve been is a good question. The kitchen, trying to keep up with You-Know-Who’s sumo appetite. Foodie is growing before my eyes. We’ve been at the annual appointments I saved for the summer (photo shoot, physical, dental), and there are his classes. I’ve had all four hands in homeschool business – convention and conferences to boot. Also got off to a running start in preparing for the Fall cycle we’ll be entering with our group, working on a music project and gathering material. I remind myself I signed up for this. I’d rather choose my own curriculum than have the schools do it for me.

I believe that child rearing must come with an imperative, must be driven by a sense of longing and even destiny…I’ve witnessed this longing in other people…but I never felt it in myself. Moreover, as I aged, I discovered that I loved my work as a writer more and more, and I didn’t want to give up even an hour of that communion. Like Jinny in Virginia Woolf’s The Waves, I felt at times “a thousand capacities” spring up in me, and I wanted to chase them all down and make every last one of them manifest…Katherine Mansfield wrote in one of her youthful diaries, “I want to work!”

I, too, wanted to work. Uninterruptedly. Joyfully.”  ~ E. Gilbert in Committed

So what do you do when you can barely get your hands around both desires? When your whole wonderful life feels like an interruption of the work you want to do and your burden is heavier for the guilt of one who should be more grateful? As long as your child is young (or as long as you homeschool), you let go the notebook with your thousand capacities spilling over its pages and as it falls watch the rain bleed the ink into the ground. You take the hand you’ve emptied and close it over his. And you die just a little. Writing, after all, is only your oxygen.

At the conference last week, we were presented a chart that helped us sort our priorities. At the top was a section for

VITALS, what our life is about. This will depend on your worldview but most of us will fill this box in with relationships (with family, friends, self, God). Below that we had

NECESSITIES, where our time and money go. The things we need to sustain our life and our vitals. Food, shelter, health, education, transportation. They are not what life is about but postmoderners forget this in the grand Pursuit of Things. Below this box were the

ACCESSORIES, our happy upgrades. We need to eat but not at high-end restaurants. We need a car but not a Bentley. We need to work but don’t need to hanker after the position that will take us away from family. Last came the

DISPOSABLES. TV, Facebook, iGadgets. Many of us, especially in America, have turned our priorities over on their heads.

I appreciated the list but am still struggling with a part of it. Where does my writing go? The question at least explains the frustration that’s shadowed me this summer. While I live and work within the relationships that are important to me, writing fulfills me as nothing else can. It balances me, as I feel incomplete apart from it. It is a necessity because it feeds my relationship with my self – not to mention friends around the world. I feel at my best, approaching the summit of who I was meant to be almost like Gilbert’s Alma Whittaker who sets out to put a lifetime’s scientific study on paper, “not merely alive, but outfitted with a mind that was functioning at the uppermost limits of its capacity –  a mind that was seeing everything, and understanding everything, as though watching it all from the highest imaginable ridge. She would awaken, catch her breath, and immediately begin writing again.” ~ The Signature of All Things

But my words have been excised from my list of priorities this season as though they were disposable. (What do you do with that?? You eventually risk sabotaging your delicate sleep and write at two in the morning.) No wonder I’ve felt amputated.

I grew by an average of 1000 followers a month last year. But blog growth right now is a luxury of a thought. All these piles and piles of notes and drafts for posts, the books I’ve wanted to share with you, the personal challenges I’ve needed to process in print. Here I’ve sat before a keyboard that might as well have been calling from across the ocean. My Stats have read like an EKG of someone lost to us forever. Oh, my heart. But we can administer shock to resuscitate hearts, can’t we? When Opinionated Man asked for my keys and offered to run my site if I had to stay away any longer, the thought was enough to zap me out of the grave. statsNEW

 

184 thoughts on “When My Blog Died”

  1. It’s so good to see you here D. Life gets in the way of living and before you know it – derailment. Take each day as it comes and do the best you can with what you’ve got and try not to be so hard on yourself.

    I never did the homeschooling thing but I was the single parent of three boys and now that they’re grown hearing them say “they admire my strength and my unwillingness to quite” is music to my ears. It was difficult, there were days I didn’t think I would make it but while failures occurred they were only commas, not periods.

    You are so blessed.

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  2. I’m envious of your dilemma. To have something as valuable as the need to write is truly a gift. I see the placement of “where does writing go” very high in the hierarchy. In a Maslow sort of way, I would place it more in line with self-actualization.

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  3. I think from the sounds of it your writing would belong in the Vital box. That is how reading is for me. I need to read. When other people tell me they haven’t read a book in a long time or they wish they had time to read, I can’t relate. I’m glad you’re back and pursuing your blog. From my first read, it looks like something you’re good at. And I admire your homeschooling also. Wish I would have done that with my boys and I think it’s even more important now.

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    • How sweet. Thank you so much for taking a moment to share and encourage. =) Yes, Husband said after the post he thinks this is vital (Vital) for me. But my finding the time remains an issue. =(

      Happy reading. =)
      Diana

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    • Hey, Jude 🙂 Hi…For a long while, I have been telling myself what a lousy reader I am because I have lots of dry spells when it comes to reading books. Then I realized I’m not lazy at all. It’s just my media have changed a bit. i have come to love reading articles on the net, and especially great blog posts by wonderful writers like Diana. I always leave the page learning something, however big or small 🙂

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  4. Oh life does pull us in so many directions. It has certainly been hindering my writing, and most definitely cutting into my reading time, so I hear you! Many days I long to bury myself in a book and let the rest of the world go by. But I lament, I must play the catch up game myself before indulging in such luxuries. You are not alone. ❤

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  7. Great that hubby recognizes your writing as an integral part of your being.

    Guess it depends what you choose to do..more on conference re home-schooling, home schooling, etc. Son is growing up…

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  9. Pingback: Alive, Barely Breathing | Through Mirrored Lens

  10. Exactly how I feel!!!!! I am trying to find my way into writing again as well, even if it meant opening a (supposed) fan page.

    I am honestly visiting blogs I like to inspire me more so I went here. Glad to see you are writing again. I am envious at how good you are at this, but it’s a good kind of envy 🙂

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  12. I love your writing style. I just came across a few posts and loved it. Please do share and keep on sharing.

    The world of the words needs you. 🙂

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  14. thank you for reading my blog and keep writing – I understand where you’re coming from, writing has kept me sane and happy through lots of grief and illness. As for children – I used to say my girls were the reason I wrote (so inspiring) and the reason I didn’t (parenting is all consuming at times) – I’d like to say it gets less hectic as they grow, but no, just different dramas – but hey that’s what we writers thrive on:) Take care of yourself and enjoy each precious moment…

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  15. You have an excellent style. I think of blogging as a way to express yourself. True artistry is the value of expressing yourself.

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    • The luxury of one hour might as well be four. I (finally) gave up writing past bedtime. I am a sensitive sleeper and it completely derailed me the next day. I’m glad you get to feed your soul so faithfully. =) Thank you for the follow!

      Diana

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  18. As much as you’ve been missed I give you kudos for taking care of yourself however best you needed to for your life and your loves. We’re not going anywhere and your blog will keep growing. 1000/month-pretty damn impressive and puts you ahead of the curve for a long time to come. (I definitely also saw a big decline in mine the last four weeks with wedding stuff but what are you gonna do- life feeds the writing feeds the life and the imbalance is part of the balance of it all.)

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    • “life feeds the writing feeds the life and the imbalance is part of the balance of it all.” Be careful. I may push you to give us some poetry. =) My stats are looking like they had cardiac arrest. Oh well. =/ I signed up to homeschool.

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  20. This is a great article, and I think all bloggers struggle with this. When I start big projects I let my blog slide. It’s hard to balance. Writing is so important to me, but it comes in all forms like J Gi Federizo said about reading. It is also hard to balance reading blogs. I’m curious about how your blog “grew by an average of 1000 followers a month last year.” That’s incredible – even though blogging is not all about gaining followers. Hope things are going well for you now. Thanks for the post. 🙂

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    • Thanks for the input and the interested reading, Marsha. Balance is a slippery fish, for sure – something I have yet to get a handle on (which is why I have gone long between posts my third yr out here, with LiFe needing attention). And yes, that was a GREAT year, ha ha ha, riding that trajectory. Seems a distant dream now but trying to make it out in the clouds, I recall just very active engagement on all fronts of blogging, of which posting is just a small piece. So I was engaging bloggers, new and old, most certainly. I write slowly, carefully, so all in all blogging = TIME for me. And with my boy growing as he is (requiring even more food for body and brain!) I am called to the trenches of kitchen and homeschool, away from my beloved words.

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      • You won’t give it up entirely, though. I have known other moms in your same situation. They “ghost” away for a time. Hopefully they will come back. If the desire is strong enough, nothing will stop you! 🙂 Thanks for writing back such a detailed and thoughtful comment. That is so important in forming relationships, and so devastating to balance! 🙂

      • Well, if I stopped writing – on or outside the blog – I will die. Ha ha ha. So my words leave me little choice. Thanks for the encouragement, Marsha. Hope your new site and writing projects are coming along well.

        Diana

      • A real name! I love that! I certainly don’t want you to die from lack of writing. I totally get that. I would do the same thing. Even if my writing is full of errors – which is often is no matter how much I proofread. Even if I can’t quite get my point across, which my husband often says I don’t. Even if I’m way too wordy, which no one needs to tell me about that. I love writing. I love even more corresponding with people who love writing, too. Have a great week, Diane. 🙂 Marsha 🙂

  21. Definitely, the thought of having Opinionated Man run your blog would shock you out of the grave. I like him, but could never imagine what he might say or do to further your work. BTW, this comment is to let you know I am not dead yet, but my blog is all but there. I have only worked through a translator for far too long and now think in short, simple sentences.

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