Recently, in the past week, within 24 hours of each other, two of the blogs that I follow announced their discontinuation.
The first by a friend from college, came as no real surprise. He had trailed off from 40+ posts in January to 28 in February and his first post in March, was on March 9 to announce no more blogging in the immediate future.
His blog is highly personal speaking of the strange twists and turns his life has been taking of late. While, I enjoy reading each post, I am often drained when I finish reading it. Just think how he must feel as the one writing and living it.
His reason for taking a breather was straight forward writing such a personal blog was too emotionally charged for him right now. Especially since many of the issues in his life were showing no signs of changing anytime soon.
Personally, it is not like he is leaving my life or even my cyber life. We are still face book friends, which is how I learned about his blog in the first place.
The second blog discontinuation was a little more surprising. Her goodbye post on March 9th was her 17th post of the month with no mention in the other 16 of blogger burn-out. She hosted her own carnivals and was a regular contributor to other carnivals that I contribute to as well.
I know her only form her posts and we were often commenting on each other's posts. It was from her that I heard about Homeschool kids write which I praised in my last post. Her reason for leaving was that blogging was stealing her away from her true calling in life: growing Godly children.
The termination of these blogs in such proximity to one another did have an impact on myself. Now, as I mentioned previously this month, I am a catharsis smatharsis kind of guy. Writing deeply intimate posts on a daily basis and sharing them in blog land is not what I do. So, I don't run too much jeopardy of suffering emotional burnout here. I do fall prey to making this blog a much higher priority than it should be. In the past weeks my blogging has become a cause of friction between me and my family. I am supposed to be blogging about them, not letting blogging become a hindrance to them.
As a home schooling dad and the main teacher of my children, I need to keep my priorities in order. As the leader of my home, I need to be loving my wife and putting her first ahead of my self. If blogging gets in the way of those things my blogs no matter how fun, thoughtful, or how many quarters I give-a-way are worthless.
Don't worry my friends I have no plans of going away. I had already made several changes at home and on this blog before I read the farewell posts I am telling you about. I love blogging and more ideas and dreams about improving this blog than I have the time to implement them all. So, that means that many of those ideas will never get implemented. As long as I am doing my main jobs expect no goodbyes in the near future.
Next Time: Our Star Wars Names
My son loves Star Wars. He would spend all his time playing Star Wars if I let him. Amy and I usually don't allow guns or shooting in the house. But I have assured Amy that this all took place a long time ago in a galaxy far far away.
