My 98 year-old bungalow, with its broad front porch…

1) I’m out of the habit:

The reality is that blogging was a regular daily (sometimes twice-daily) habit for me for many years. Once that began to taper off, so many other things began to fill its space.  That said, I still post links and photos regularly on FB and on IG, so I still have a fairly broad social media presence despite not blogging.

2) I’m an empty-nester:

Oddly, although I would have thought that having the kiddos out of the house would mean oodles of writing time for me, it simply hasn’t been the case. Being solo means that I have to do everything (from taking out the trash to grocery shopping to cleaning the litterbox) on my own.  Not having the kids around to help with many of those tasks means less time for me to pursue writing (and other hobbies).  I suspect that that will change a bit as soon as I get truly settled into my new house and have fewer organizing/furniture-moving/lightbulb-changing activities to perform.

3) I’ve got a huge front porch:

I probably spend at least on a hour a day sitting on my porch doing not much of anything (maybe eating or reading or chatting with a neighbor). I always wanted a broad front porch where I could sit and watch the world pass by. It’s a constant magnet that tugs at me and tempts me to close the lid of my laptop and get outside again already.

4) My in-real-life relationships have become more important to me than my cyber-ones:

I suspect that this has been a gradual but purposeful change for me. I want friends to eat with, to giggle with, to take walks at the beach with. It’s really hard to do that with friends that you only know over the internet or that you only see every 3 or 4 years. While I still value those of you who I feel close to who live far away, hanging out with local friends is incredibly satisfying and means that I don’t feel such a strong need to broadcast my daily thoughts out the audience of the internet. Because I can tell that story to a friend tonite over dinner, instead.

5) I have a pen and a beautiful German diary, and I know how to use them:

For a long time, my blog was a space where I could work out the difficult things that were swirling around in my head–I would post a quotation or a photo as an attempt to strengthen my spine a bit to endure the challenges that I had in my daily life.  And while I still have challenges, I generally grapple with those on the pages of my journal, instead of posting online.  It feels good to be discovering penmanship again, and to let my thoughts fly in a space where I don’t need to censor them.  It seems a better space than this one, for getting perspective on whatever problem-of-the-day is disrupting my peace.

***

As a result of my lack-of-blogging, I’ve felt writing to be a bit harder than it used to be.  The words just aren’t flowing as freely as before.  I might start writing here more often again as an exercise in creativity, but I’m not yet sure…