Blahgging

Warning: Honesty and whining ahead. Proceed at your own risk.

Recently, I have been feeling a bit blah about blogging. There. I said it. I don't really know why. I love this place, this wilderness, this world. I love the fierce flux, the real-time exchange of emotion and idea, the swirl of silly and serious. I love being able to say something each day. I love reading your words as they trickle in. I love so many things. Too many to list here.

But. Something has happened. A curious lethargy. A sense of obligation, exhaustion. Once upon a time, I had a surplus of blog posts in my head at any given time ready to be born. Now? Now, I'm struggling a bit, spinning, grasping. Pretending. Pretending that the same enthusiasm is there, here, revving me on.

But it isn't.

I have several theories. It could be a summer thing, a strangling sense of casualness and freedom that has taken hold. It could be a shift in creative focus; I am now mentally immersed in the fictional world of my next novel. It could be a deeper, existential issue though. I am feeling, more and more, a pull toward greater privacy, toward protecting details about my dreams and my days. It could be a more simple realization, slow-forming but here now, that every moment I spend here in this world, or thinking about this world, is one I do not spend in the physical world with my little girls and my man.

There are other things. Things I cannot tell you now. Things I might never tell you. Things that require, at least for now, vagueness and veiling. Things that I would like to write about, to release, but things I keep tucked tight to my chest out of prudence, purpose, paranoia.

The good thing? It seems I am not alone. In an emblematic moment of quasi-desperation, I just sent a little cry out into the Twittersphere. I said, "Need a blog post topic. Something fun & spicy. Ideas?" These words? Prime evidence that I am a bit lost, a bit empty, searching. I am glad I sent this message though. Because in no time, I got some responses including one from friend and fellow blogger Sarah of Momalom. She said, "I can't seem to write about anything these days...sorry...no help. I think I'm done with blogging (for a while?)." Now I certainly hope Sarah isn't done with blogging because I cherish her words and thoughts, but I must say it is encouraging to know that this blogging blahness is perhaps normal, something we all face from time to time.

The other good thing? This will pass. I know it. There will come a time - and it could be tomorrow - when my energy returns, when I am awash in ideas and inventions. I look forward to that time. Until then, I can only keep on, wading through the blahs that behold me, being honest with you. And with me.

All I ask? That you guys stick with me. Because I am going nowhere. I will be here. Weaving words. Being raw. Being real.

Being me.

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• If you blog, have you gone through similar periods of blah-ness? How have you weathered these periods?
• Have you experiences stints of blah-ness in your life in general?
• Do you think that admitting you feel blah is a first step in moving past this blah-ness?
• Do you blog or write in part to force yourself to be honest about what you are feeling?
• Are there things that you do not say on your blog, but want to? Why do you censor yourself? To protect yourself? Others?