Almost a year of no blogging later...

I’m very flattered by all of the comments – both from readers and from friends and family – as to why my blogging activity has stopped and when (if ever) I’m coming back.

Thank you, thank you! You’ve made me feel very pleased with myself.

But I still don’t know if I’ll go back to blogging.

You know, I’m not the only one to have had a blog and then discontinue it – many bloggers, even full-time, mega-popular, book-deal-in-the-works, money-earning, Superbloggers have decided to call it quits at one point or another, due to reasons that non-bloggers perhaps find difficult to understand. (But if you want, you can read some interviews with some of them at http://mylifeandkids.com/2012/07/should-you-take-a-bloggy-break-part-1/, which is one of the best blogs out there!)

Now of course the simple reason for my timeout would of course be the fact that I’m a full-time working mom of one of the most rambunctious little toddlers the world has ever known (they call them “spirited” nowadays...) and that I seriously collapse on the couch the second she stops wailing in bed and haven’t managed to watch a full episode of CSI, Heroes, The Office, or even Cops without dosing off...ever.

However the real reason why I stopped blogging is actually another one – and please forgive me for being brutally honest here – at one point I had to get really picky about which aspects of my life were serving me, and which ones weren’t.

I started blogging at the same time that I discovered metaphysics, the power of positive thinking, the law of attraction, etc. and wanted to document my journey as a positive thinker, a seeker of truth. Of course most of my blogs were also about life in Luxembourg, cute stories of things that happened to me, and random photos from my life (those WERE fun, I agree!).

However I noticed that when my job changed, I had less time and less material to write about, which had me constantly thinking “I want to blog, but what about?”

Then I had my baby, and had plenty to write about, but the dilemma became one of “I want to blog, but I’m too tired.” Or “I want to blog, but I have to get this laundry folded before naptime is over.” Or (and this is the big one) “I want to blog, but who wants to hear about my kid? There are 1,900* “Mommy blogs” out there that are way better than mine, and that’s not my thing anyway.”

At one point I had a sheet of paper on which I collected my blog topics – and there were some really good ones on there – so that when I did have the time and energy, I could catch up on all of the things I really wanted to write about. And eventually that list became just as long as my to-do list, and started being a source of real anxiety for me (“When am I going to get this all done?!?”).

Or – and I’m sure many bloggers know this feeling – I would live my life, and as I was living it, I was constantly thinking, “I have to blog about this!” instead of actually enjoying the moment.

It was at that time I had to ask myself the question: “is this really serving me? Am I blogging for myself, or for other people? Am I blogging out of the sheer joy of creative expression, or am I blogging out of a feeling of commitment? How much simpler would my life be if I didn’t have my blog to tend to?”

So that’s what happened. I decided to stop. To simplify my life in a very easy way. And despite my feeling of obligation to my dear readers to explain why I was stopping, I decided to do without that as well. Because it was one more thing on my to-do list that was only stressing me out.

Pretty sad, eh? The good thing about me not officially saying farewell, however, is that I can start blogging again at any time I want. And I have actually felt the urge to do this lately, so perhaps I will. But I will have to change my attitude (and my sense of obligation and responsibility to my readership) if I do decide to start up again. Because my life is too short to NOT be picky about how I’m spending my time, and how much energy I’m devoting to stories of complication and annoyance, instead of stories of upliftment and genuine joy.

And with that, I leave you...for now. I will let you know, however, that I have renewed my Google storage account** so that whenever I get the urge, I can begin blogging again and offer a plethora of enormous resolution photos and videos and entertaining tidbits of all sorts.

 

*I know. I counted.

**It only cost $5.00.