A few months ago I decided to put Simple on Purpose on hold. It had been an easy choice to put this blog on the back burner for a while. I have never relied on it for any income, I had some exciting projects to get off the ground with A Little Light and I suppose I had found myself a little on the empty side with it came to finding the motivation and resources to keep blogging.
A weird thing happened.
At first, I felt so free. Free in time, expectations, and resources. I was getting stuff done I had been saying I wanted to do. I was tackling some of my ‘2016 goals‘. You know, things such as sewing like shit so I could someday ‘sew shit’; reading books; going to bed before midnight, making more waffles, having people over for dinner. I wasn’t stressing about getting posts done each week, blog promotion, and having something to write.
I was really enjoying this time at first but there was a change happening I didn’t catch onto.
Last week I was pursuing my Timehop and reading old Instagrams. I realized I had stopped using Instagram too, a place I loooove to hang out on. Sure, less social media can’t be a bad thing. But I started feeling like I was slowly shutting down my writing, which was a chain reaction of other things shutting down: my voice, my stories, my imagination. This led me to my annual blogger crisis, which includes a sampling of questions such as this:
Why am I writing this? What am I offering the world? Is anyone even reading this? Are they rolling their eyes at how often I mention waffles and messy floors? What will all this become in twenty years? Is this the best use of my time? What would I do if I wasn’t blogging? Should I be monetizing or is this just the cost of a hobby?
All of this was coinciding the posts I was writing for the month of April at A Little Light, all about dreaming. Yup, I was having a little inner crisis about my own dreams while writing a whole month’s worth of content on dreaming. I tell ya, God really makes you work for the things you say you want because a few months back I was one drunken night away from ordering a DREAM BIGGER DREAMS motivational poster for me and all my besties, when I suddenly felt like tossing my laptop into the river and moving to a place with no cell reception. NO CELL RECEPTION!? WHO AM I!? I love the internet! I just. I can’t even.
So as I pushed the women at A Little Light to realize that their dreams matter, that they can live each day with a little nudge towards their dreams – I was wrestling with God about it all. All the years it took to get me to admit I loved to write, even call myself a ‘writer’ and now I was arguing against everything I had said I wanted. I was looking for an out. Because I’m a rational person who handles life with grace, hustle and self-assurance………?
I realized that when I lose the steam to do the hard work I fall into a pit of self-doubts. I no longer entertain the space for dreams in my life, it shuts down the whole system.
If you are one for metaphors: I had a worn a hole in my cup and I was watching its contents seep out onto my dusty hobbit feet.
That month I spent immersing myself in the topic of dreaming made me realize that sometimes dreaming isn’t a lot of fun. Sometimes our dreams are under attack and we have to fight for them and believe that we deserve them. We are supposed to feel like there isn’t enough time and resources to do it all because it makes us CHOOSE what we really want. It makes us fight for what we really want. Because what we really want is part of our hearts, it is unchangeably who we are. When we fight for what we want we confirm our deep down authentic selves.
As I went about these past couple months, I have patched up my hole. I have let the glue set. I am ready to refill. Refill with the things I really do love: words, stories, sharing, you readers, community, encouragement. Even if blogging isn’t ‘quick and easy’ and you really sometimes feel like you are writing into outerspace (side note: if you like something you read, give a blogger some love: a comment, an email, a like, a book recommendation, anything! because not hearing back anything sends us into a mental spiral and makes us contemplate slamming the laptop and tossing it into the river…or so I’ve heard). When you are doing the things that you love the hard work and the heart work overlap. I believe blogging important for my heart. I believe it is important for community, and I thank you for being part of that.
All of this to say, I’m back bichachas!
Now, leave me a message somewhere and let me know what you would kind of posts you are interested in reading about!