Welcome 2025 – New Year, New Writing Goals?
It has been a long time since I posted on here, and even longer since I posted regularly. It is difficult to even remember the person that I was when I first started this blog. The past few years have been a blur and I feel like I have changed so much as a person in that time.
When I originally started this blog, I felt like my life was in a great place. I was a new homeowner of a house that I adored, in a town that I loved, and had a great community around myself. Things got a little shaky in 2020, with fewer get-togethers, and a lot of the businesses that I loved closing – but it was something that could be bounced back from. Losing my parents in 2022 and 2023 rocked me to my core. As much as I might try, I don’t think that I can ever get to the same headspace that I was in when they were still alive. The shadows of grief took over, and even though I am trying to find myself again, that grief will always still be there too.
I debated letting this site go. I don’t really use it anymore. Every time that I have told myself I would come back to blogging, I haven’t. I don’t know what to write or what purpose this site even serves at this point. I am no longer writing for any kind of audience. I am not writing for a business or to make money in any way. This blog has really been a place where I could just write, but now I find myself barely ever able to write. When I do have something that I could write about, it tends to be rooted in sadness, and not something I necessarily want to share with the entire world.
So many people are good at putting on a show and keeping up with appearances. They can create the perfectly curated images of a beautiful life that others would try to emulate. I have never been good at that kind of thing. Even if I were better able to do so, I don’t really want to. I don’t see a point in it, for me at least. Blogging just doesn’t seem well suited to me and where I am right now. Besides, in a world of TikTok, Youtube, and Instagram, I don’t think many people are looking to read blogs anymore.
I can think of a lot of good reasons to let this blog go, but I can’t bring myself to do it. It is a good way to force myself to keep writing, or it would be if I actually followed through. I have always been a writer. Writing is something that I love and that allows me to feel like my true self. However, it is so hard for me to even pick up a pen or open a keyboard nowadays. Writing opens me up in a way that allows me to channel my innermost feelings, and to be honest, I tend to hide from those feelings a lot lately. Ultimately though, the reason that I can’t bring myself to get rid of this site is my mom. She was always my biggest fan; she followed this blog and read everything I wrote, always encouraging me to write more. She helped me brainstorm the name of this blog and I talked to her about every step in the writing process. Letting go of the blog feels like letting go of another aspect of her, and that is something that I don’t think I can do. I still love the idea of continuing to write here with my mom as my main audience in mind, so now I need to find a way to do it. I don’t know if anyone else will ever read this blog, but I think all that matters is that I feel like I am writing for my mom again. So that’s what I will do. Now I just have to figure out what to write.
Writing was a big goal for me as we entered the new year. It is such an important aspect of my life, that I feel like I have lost alongside my parents. I told myself that I would write every day and blog here at least once a week. I have a manuscript of a middle grade novel that I wrote waiting for me to finish editing it, but I think I need to focus on smaller writing projects before I go back to that. If writing ability is like a muscle, I have allowed mine to atrophy too much over the past few years. I think my quiet little blog without an audience might be the perfect way to stretch that writing muscle for now.
February is an especially difficult month for me. As we get closer, I can already feel the depressions weighing heavier on me each day. I am trying to make plans to keep myself from fading away completely during that time, so I think I am going to challenge myself for the month. I am going to make February my blog challenge month and have a goal of writing here every single day. I am still not sure what exactly I will write about yet. I could just write about how I am feeling on a given day, glimpses of daily life, homeschooling, recipes and housekeeping routines, or crafts and activities that I do with my kids. I could also write fiction. This blog could be the perfect starting ground for some many little stories and characters living inside me. On days that I really don’t know what to write, I might just generate a random prompt, either fiction or non-fiction.
That’s my plan for now. Let’s see how I do in meeting those goals.
