It stopped for grief. The ramping up of care for my elderly mum and mother-in-law, their deaths nine months apart, and the sadness and weariness of the grief that followed left me with little energy but to get through what needed to be done and then lay on the sofa near the north facing window that catches the warm afternoon sun. Sometimes I just lay there and stared into space and sometimes I watched something gentle on the television, which later turned into a bit of a habit and the watching of five of the six series of Downton Abbey in fairly quick succession...eventually leading to needing to DO SOMETHING alongside watching TV but nothing too taxing = learning to crochet. And wait somewhat impatiently for series six of Downton Abbey to screen in real time. [Confession: As it screened elsewhere in the world before it reached Australia I shamelessly read synopses of all the episodes on the Internet before it hit our screens!]
Watching DVDs + crocheting blankets = no reading.
And so it stopped for lack of things to say. I stopped reading, apart from the Bible, and then at some point there was a return to the voracious consumption of novels during school holidays, but nothing meatier than that. I really had nothing much to say. Eventually though I'd watched enough Downton Abbey, crocheted enough blankets, read enough novels and took a restoring long service leave trip with my family to Europe - and found myself in the world of paid work.
And so it stopped for lack of time to write because between a couple of part time (albeit casual but reasonably regular) jobs, church commitments and house and home (including the new development of complicated but gloriously wonderful teenagers), there was little brain space for thinking creatively let alone time or energy to write anything down.
But sometime last year I found myself missing the writing process and my mind beginning to observe the world in sentences and paragraphs once again. My updates on Facebook were getting (ridiculously) longer. The front page of our Christmas letter was more of a blog post than a family update. And just how many paragraphs can you add to your photos on Instagram??
As this was unfolding Tim Challies wrote a lovely series on blogging. Serendipitously, on my birthday he published a post (called "Why you shouldn't stop blogging") that warmly encouraged small time blogging and celebrated, among other things, the opportunity to build relationships and be an encouragement in that space. Which, apart from the gentle art of writing, is the very thing I love about blogging.
As I haven't been paying such close attention in recent years, it passed my gaze that while we were away on holidays in January my blog quietly turned ten. I can hardly stage a loud and grand celebration given it lay dormant for a few of those years - and loud and grand isn't my style in any case - but I think a small cupcake with jellytots and sparklers is definitely in order. (Picture nabbed unashamedly from the Internet here.) While I've been away I have forgotten how to do a few things. I tried to reply to a comment someone left (COMMENTS!!! I haven't even checked for comments in ages and sweetly, there were a few waiting patiently for me) and ended up replying anonymously because I couldn't work out how to comment on my own blog. Also I am vaguely wondering about crossing over to Wordpress (are you allowed to mention that on Blogger??), taking the best of what I have here with me. Things to work out, relearn and muse over. In the meantime I have a small list of books I am looking forward to reading, a few ideas to write about and I'm encouraged by Tim Challies to stop fussing about the big, spectacular, silver bullet, polished posts and to just write. Which is exactly what I did this evening.
