Tiny Fractures

I've been avoiding this blog for a while. I've been avoiding developing a more calculated, effective, and "possible" writing plan here for an even longer while. After all, what is one to do when an activity (this here blog) that you have pledged all your ambition, perseverance, and discipline to becomes destructive?

The truth is, with my teaching schedule, I can't keep up a daily blogging routine. Not at the moment anyway. Blogging quickly became less of a joy, less of a way to explore the world in warm, sparkly, self-reflective light and more of the dragging fingernails on the chalkboard--the kind that make the tiny hairs on your arm stand up and trigger the visceral response of your sympathetic nervous system. As the workload piled up in the light of the inevitable daily blog, I felt like I was cracking. Tiny fractures splintering up and down my spine under the weight of my self-imposed obligations. If you aren't getting the picture yet, it wasn't pretty.

And so I was surprised to find how joyous reading through past blog entries was. I remembered fondly the tweaking I did to the layout over the first few days. I remembered the sense of possibility and the thrill of seeing the readership increase slowly every day. I remembered walking even more often with my iPhone in hand, ready to snap the one picture that would be the thread of gratitude in my day. It was exciting. And then I read an actual entry. And I didn't hate the writing. And I suddenly didn't hate that I took a break from the daily grind. It was strange.

And so I jumped behind the blogging dashboard and decided to write about gratitude for that feeling when you realize you have created a tiny something to be proud of and also that feeling when you achieve patience--even for the briefest of moments--with yourself.

In the future I want this to be a writing portfolio. Daily--or at least weekly--reflections on life coupled with snippets of my creative, scholarly, and professional writing. I'm practically bursting with writing projects at the moment. I've been in contact with an intrepid soul who's putting together an anthology of coming out stories so I'm working on that. I've been writing--sparingly--for the Rockford Indie Press and they want me to do a bi-weekly column (about what? I have no idea and am open to suggestions) so that's fun. I also spend many hours each day writing tiny comments in the margins of student papers. But for now, firmly entrenched in the downhill slope of the end of the semester, I can't do it all.

So for the time being I'll just sit on my blogging hands and be thankful that it is here, that I created it to begin with, that I don't hate myself for taking a break, that it will be here when I'm ready for it, and that it's here if you want it when I'm not.

Thanks for reading (and following) (and spreading the word) (and putting up with the number of times bloggers use the word "I").

Here's to tiny fractures and the things we do to heal them.