A Blog In Which She Blogs About Why She Rarely Blogs Anymore

(How's that for a run-on-words-title?)

I've been on a blog strike. I know. It's bad. Don't be fooled by the blogs I posted last week; most of them were drafts that'd been stored up for weeks but never seemed to arrive at a punch line until I stripped my brain down and just focused on getting a blog done for once. Just to prove it, this blog was started over a month ago. Yeah... it's taken that long to get a simple blog post done.

So in a desperate attempt to break out of the "I-can't-think-of-anything-to-blog-about-mode" I decided to just come right out and blog about why I've been in a blogging slump.

I calmly click the little "home" icon on my computer. Up flashes my "home" page. (Weird how that works, huh?)

And then I click "My account" and suddenly my eyes blink onto a bunch of hyperlinked options. I select "Blogger" of all things and merely zoom off to Blog spot. Now that I'm here, what was I supposed to be doing? Oh yeah, blogging.

What a novel thought.

Now for the blog...

Normally people blog about things that are on their mind. You know, weighty matters, light-hearted fun or photo tutorials. Some people even blog about their pets or politics. And their projects. Others blog about their kids and husbands (ahem). Pretty much, if it's on your mind and you've self-assigned yourself the title of "Blogger" you can write about anything you want.

Right?

Um, wrong.

Okay, maybe you can write about it but sometimes what's most on my mind, is unspeakable.

(If this isn't making sense, you're welcome to click "Next Blog" at the top of this page or utilize the little red box with the white "x" in it up in the right hand corner. But before you decide, let me tell you that I think this post just might end up being a perfect illustration as to why THIS blogger hasn't been too busy on her blog in the last year. So if you care to know, read on. If not, I completely understand and won't even know that you didn't actually read this whole post.)

Sometimes I visit nice blogs and the blogger seems to have plethora of good experiences, happy days, perfect lives and no tears. They never make mistakes and if they do, they don't cry themselves to sleep over them. Or at least they don't say so on their blog.

I hate those kinds of blogs. They irk me. Irritate me. And make me think that the blogger is either the one and only person with a perfect life who has everything figured out OR they're totally faking it.

I mean seriously... HOW do some of these homeschooling stay-at-home moms do it and get everything done? I'm lucky to get the laundry sorted, let alone create a crafty masterpiece to set on the dining room table, complete with a photo tutorial detailing everything.

And then I realized that I do the very thing I hate seeing in other bloggers. I only let the good things in my life come out on my blog. I only write about what's safe. What's decent. What's funny. And cute. I'm not open about my bad days. Or how hard life has been. Or what I've been learning in the "trials and tribulations" category.

But, now I understand those Always Have Everything Put Together Kind Of People. They may NOT have it all together but because the World Wide Web can be such a heartless place of cruelty and criticism (like I was doing to their perfect blogs), they're limited to only portraying the things in their life that won't be cut apart and criticized.

It reminds me of my days on the farm when I'd watch chickens in their pen. If one chicken had a sore, the other chickens all picked at it until it was a bigger sore. And then finally, the injured chicken would become a victim of what was a little scab at one time. And, because all the other chickens had made the scab become an infected, oozing sore that could possibly monopolize the whole flock because of the bacteria that could freely grow in the infested sore, the injured chicken shriveled to just a little pile of bones and feathers. All because of a little sore.

People on the internet are no different. And when a blogger has a "sore subject" that they could blog about, they're better off hiding it and only showing their good side to the rest of the chickens people on the internet. Because that sore subject could become a big, oozing topic that would leak infection over the entire blog and soon they'd either have to shut their blog down for the sake of saving some of their dignity or avail themselves to even more pecking and picking apart.

So in a nut-shell, I realized that according to my blog, I am also one of the Always Have Everything Put Together Kind Of People. And that makes me feel so accomplished today and that at least I'm doing something right. Ha.

Now to further the topic at hand of what's distracting this once-avid-blogger, I'm just wondering if you've ever had a time in your life when your mind pounded with loud, piercing thoughts? Okay, I guess I can't see a show of hands through my computer screen even if you are raising yours so I'll just branch off here and tell you that I have had a time in my life when my mind pounded with loud, piercing thoughts.

For me, it usually happens before or after something big has taken place or somewhere in the middle. And when this Big Thing has happened or is almost happening or is in the middle of happening, I get the Loud Piercing Thoughts Pounding In My Mind experience when I'm alone.

Me being alone is a rare thing these day but I've pretty much figured out that it happens in two different ways.

Way #1: Driving Alone. Which has honestly been all of maybe three times in recent months.

Way #2: Morning Shower. Which has honestly been a daily routine for, well... a long time.

I guess these two times are pretty much the only two times that reality isn't running to me with bloody mouths, head bumps and small objects up their nose. (By "reality" I mean my kids, in case you couldn't tell.)

I noticed one day as I drove down the road all alone, the thoughts, the heavy heart and the swirling questions floating around my van got to be too much. So I turned on the radio. I don't know what was on... news maybe? And it distracted me from thinking and it all felt quiet again even though the sound of the radio filled my vehicle. It's weird how sometimes your mind all by itself can be louder than anything that comes through your ears.

Sometimes when I do stop and think and allow my mind to digest and develop patterns, solutions and ideas, it all starts to look like one big, jumbled ball of yarn and for some reason, it looks too exhausting to untangle it all. The act of thinking only ends up hurting since the thoughts pound harder and harder until pretty soon I feel like my whole head is filled with a screaming white noise that I can't shut off because my brain just simply isn't wired to STOP thinking.

So then I just want to take the Yarn Ball and throw it out the vehicle window as I drive or wash it down the shower drain if I'm showering. Or simply spend time with my kids or husband or help a friend move. Anything to distract my mind from thinking.

Sometimes I wonder where this complexity of life comes from. What it is that makes me react in a I-wish-I-could-shut-my-brain-off-kind-of-way. But then I realize: it happens when something changes.

Change is the culprit of so many things. Change in a good way; change in a bad way. Happy change. Sad change.

Usually life is filled with a balanced mixture of many things and not one ingredient tends to over-ride the whole picture. But when one ingredient overpowers the other additives to life, pretty soon you feel like Chocolate Chip Cookies that have 10 parts baking soda to 1 part flour and no chocolate chips. Yeah, life can be that unbalanced and complicated sometimes.

And that's the way it's been for this blogger on the other side of your screen.

I've had to learn the hard way what I think. What I believe. And what I know. It's made me stop and think about what matters. What life is all about. What the Bible really says. And what my goals should be.

At the end of it all, I come away with a resolved confidence to find The Truth. To know God's plan. And hear God's heart.

Because the one thing I've learned this past year is that God always answers prayer. Though He's rarely early and never late, He's always on time.

And that's something that never changes.