3 Reasons Why I Stopped Writing

So it’s been like 147 years since I’ve written. Apparently, I took an unintentional extended vacay…and many mini-vacays before that.

So much has happened  in the past few years. We moved again. My three big kids are all in school full time. And…they are called “big kids” now because we added ANOTHER baby to our family.

I am being reminded why I started this blog in the first place. And it’s basically because babies make you nutso and writing helps me cope. And I do love it. Like a lot.

And I hate it a li’l bit too.

I’ve been wondering for a while why it’s gotta be such a love/hate thing for me.  And why the “hate” part took over and caused me to hit the pause button for so long.  There are probably many little reasons I’m unaware of, but here are the Big Few.

1) I got scared.

This sounds so silly. I don’t have a nationally recognized blog. But the fact that anyone sees it at all is enough to freak me out. It was all well and good when it was just my people reading this (you know, like my mom and dad). They have to love me. But then my little corner of the blogosphere expanded just a bit…and then just a little bit more. And suddenly people in the most unusual settings are asking about my life…and my life ACCORDING TO MY BLOG. As in, they KNOW stuff about me.  As much as I want to share my deeper places with others, I still want to put parameters around it. In real life, I can decide how much, with whom, in which places, and when I share. But this blog world is like one big soup pot – it all goes in to one place at one time. It’s very non-discriminatory, the Internet. (On a side note – “way to go, Internet”).  All that to say, I don’t know if I was conscious of it at the time, but I know now that I’ve been getting increasingly uncomfortable with the loss of control that comes with this territory.

2) I got confused….I think. Or too serious? I don’t know…let’s stick with confused.

I started this blog because I wanted to write about motherhood. That was the first topic that ignited the writing spark in me.  But over the years, I found myself wanting to write about other stuff too – serious stuff like (gasp!)….faith and politics. How do you jump from stories about boogers to religious persecution in the Middle East? I am a mom, yes. And I LOVE to laugh. But I also have a brain. And a conscience. (Neither of which are always operating at full capacity.) But regardless,  I’m trying to figure out how to bring all of that to the table without sounding verbally bi-polar. This goes far beyond my blog…it’s really about my life and my journey to figuring out the person God made me to be.  He’s been watering some other gardens in my soul besides the motherhood one, but I guess I just haven’t figured out a way to write about it.

3) I went through a “crisis of faith“.

This makes it sound far more glamorous than it really was, but any time I googled my problem the results kept returning “faith crisis” so I guess that’s what we’ll call it. It really wasn’t like my faith completely fell apart these last few years…but I did go through a time of sincere questioning and examining what I believe and why. Truths I’ve taken for granted ever since I was a child suddenly became questions that demanded answers. There were strong doses of doubt. Conveniently my 9 year old daughter began asking some serious tough questions of her own and I was forced to examine my beliefs in a deep way for the first time. If you ask me how or why I got to that place, I don’t know if I could tell you. But I do know that I often find myself in (and really enjoy) conversation with people who see the world differently from me…people who make me think, who refine me and my faith. So I guess I’m not surprised if it eventually unraveled me a little bit. And I didn’t know how to write from that place. It’s a good thing to be unraveled…and “re-raveled”. You’re never put back together exactly the same as before, and that’s the point. I think overall, taking these few years to quiet myself and process has been a good thing for me. I’ve spent a lot of time just listening. I’ve changed my mind on some things…and I’m gripping more tightly to the truth of others.

So those are the obstacles I’m trying to overcome as I seek to find my voice again. I feel like someone who hasn’t worked out in forever who just showed up for their first Pilates class (Oh wait, I AM someone who hasn’t worked out in forever, and yesterday I DID show up for my first Pilates class. Which leads me to this PSA: Be very strategic when placing your yoga mat. I ended up far too close to a senior citizen’s back end but was too embarrassed to move my mat…leading us both into a lesson on  “ignoring the obvious” for the next 38 minutes) Anyway, if writing is like Pilates then I’m hoping as I push through the pain and stretch these writing muscles, I will eventually come to a place where I feel a bit more centered, a bit more relaxed, and hopefully a bit more like the me I’m meant to be.