There I Go Again

My track record for writing seems to have gone down the drain.

It’s not like I’ve stopped writing all together. In fact, I think I’ve done more meaningful writing in the past couple of months than I have in years. It’s just been in the form of journaling.

There’s something special about writing by hand. It’s almost as if you can feel the emotions flowing through your handwriting in a way that typing out the same thoughts through a computer can never match up to. I’m also left-handed, so when I get really excited or into what I’m writing, I become lazy with my hand placement and tend to smear the ink a bit as I’m writing everything down. I can always tell if I’ve had a good writing session by the amount of ink on the side of my left hand.

I was on vacation this past week while the family I work for was on vacation in the states. I had originally planned to do some traveling through Europe, but the lack of extra money held me back a bit. One of the main things I had intended on doing during this vacation time was turn some of my journaled thoughts into blog posts, but here it is on my final day of freedom with nothing to show for my time off except for a much more well-rested face and a lot of clean laundry.

I haven’t really just sat down to blog much at all in the past several months. It’s not that I’ve wanted to give up and quit. I just haven’t been driven. Totally immersing myself into the “blog world” the past couple of years really took a toll on me. I’m not saying that blogging or the people who make up this community are to blame because pointing fingers is a pointless and tiresome activity. I just feel that the “writing to write” mentality has been replaced by people just trying to see how much they can get out of it. Creating a brand, doing sponsored posts, attempting to make a living by recording your daily life…these are all very common topics for the stereotypical blogger. I’m not trying to make anyone offended by writing about this, I just feel like it’s a very exhausting thing to try to do. I know a lot of fantastic people who are very successful in this form of blogging, but for me, I’d like to continue loving to write just for the sake of writing. Of course, you can’t forget all of the bloggers who always seem to have the newest clothing, the best beauty products, the most organized and put-together houses. The pressure to fit in with this becomes a big issue if you aren’t conscious of your thoughts.

Writing has become such a freeing practice for me. The past six months have been some of the most stressful months in my life, and just having an outlet like this has helped my mental health tremendously. There’s something to be said for being able to look back at your thoughts from a couple months ago and see how much you’ve grown as a person. So for me, I intend on continuing to write as a form of expression and healing. Hopefully, I’ll start getting more of that out here as well because I do miss the communication I used to enjoy in this setting. It’s just that this has become more of an enjoyable practice rather than a nagging possible key to success and fame, and I’d like to keep it that way.

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