Sunday, March 9, 2014

Time To Move On

Lately my life has felt like a roller coaster, with enough twists and turns to make me both giddy with joy and sick to my stomach. Sometimes both things happen in the same day. The roller coast ride is a daily reminder that life changes constantly and you have to change with it.

I think about the changes I want to make in my life on a near daily basis. The list is so long sometimes I don't know where to start.

My to-do list looks like this pile of luggage...

For some time now, I've been debating what to do with this blog. I've waffled between keeping it as is, rebooting it in a different format, or ditching it altogether. I looked into other blogging platforms and got temporarily excited about the idea of a new visual look and feel. By the same turn, my current platform is easy to use and visually pleasing, which made me realize the method wasn't really the problem. The problem was my motivation to write.

So I did some self-analysis to figure out why I haven't posted anything in almost a year. The easy excuses quickly popped to the forefront -- not enough time, busy with work, always too tired at the end of the day, too hard to get up in the morning to do it, etc. Then I realized I'd lost touch with WHY I was blogging.

So I went back and reread my very first blog post. I found my answer in last sentence of the first paragraph.
"By choice or not, I spent lots of time in airplanes, listening to music on my iPod, staring absently at a locked tray table and doing my best to fight for elbow room without unnecessarily touching the person sitting next to me. This gives me lots of time to think. And much of what has occupied my thoughts lately revolves around making changes in my life."

Ever since I started writing, I've been motivated by change. A lot of big changes have happened in my life since that first blog post in 2008.

  • I moved.
  • I bought a new car.
  • I got a new boyfriend.
  • I moved in with said boyfriend,
  • I dealt with heart issues and skin cancer.
  • I survived two department reorganizations at work.
  • I gained, lost and regained 35-40 pounds.
  • I took a paper doll named Flat Stanley on the journey of a lifetime -- for both of us. 
  • I watched my hockey team win the Stanley Cup from 11 rows behind the glass.
  • I traveled to 18 states in a single 18 month period, and that was just for work.
  • I reconnected with old friends and disconnected from some others.
  • I even survived jury duty - twice.

I shared my personal stories about all those changes and more because that was my goal when I started blogging. I wanted to tell MY stories.

Sometimes I wrote a lot, sometimes I wrote very little. At times I would lose my motivation and write a “reboot” blog about my intentions to get back to writing more. But lately the stories haven't been coming, at least not ones I'm willing to share.

And then the answer hit me like a lightning bolt. I haven't been interested in blogging because the most compelling stories happening in my life now are NOT ALL ABOUT ME.

When I started blogging in 2008, I was the center of my own Universe. Yes, I did things with friends and co-workers, but I was the center of all my stories. Six years later, my life is focused more on things I share with others. People I love. Friends that mean the world to me. My family. My stories now are complex, precious, often beautiful and sometimes painful tales that deserve to be cherished, not broadcast on the Internet of everything for the world to see.

My desire to tell my stories hasn't changed. My need to share them has.

So I'm moving on and closing out this blog -- and in some ways this phase of my life. I'm still writing stories every day, but for now they are written for an audience of one. Perhaps in the future I'll want show them off to the world. For now, I'm perfectly content to keep them tucked away, safe in the space between my heart and my mind.