The life cycle of blogs

So many bloggers I have absolutely adored and came to count on for wisdom, humor and honest sharing are hardly or no longer writing here. A few come immediately to mind.

Deidre
Deb C.
Debralynn
Deborah
Glenn
Mark
Miss A
Susan
Melissa
Chrissy
Dottie kee
Bruce
ellen
Denise M.
Kathleen
Others too

A few of them I am still able to connect with on email or social media, so they are not lost to me, just mostly or completely gone from here. But the ones who simply went poof, Deirdre for example, I miss with an ache akin to losing a dear friend.

I remember when one of my earliest blog comrades, Steve Reed, closed up shop for a while, I actually felt bereft, my first clue that the connections forged through the sharing of lives here can be quite real. I know this must have surprised him as much as it did me. I was thrilled when he sent me a note a year or so later letting me know he was blogging again. I was happy to fall right back into the fold. When Tearful stopped writing for what seemed like years I felt the same way, but at least I knew he was around and thriving though his wife Yolie, also my dear friend. Sometimes a friend stops writing after a period of obvious struggle, and I worry for them. Are they okay? Did they get through that bad patch? Where did they go? Sometimes, the friend just one day ups and disappears, just never puts up another post, and then one day when you check back to see if there's been any activity, you find the blog closed down, or it is now open only to invited readers, and you're not one of them.

Summer is approaching. For some reason at this time of year, I feel suddenly revealed, possibly in a way similar to the exposure I experience when the swaddling winter coats come off and we emerge uncovered into spring. I start to play with the notion of letting this blog lie fallow for a while, or closing it down completely. I never do it because I would miss the regular connection with people here whom I have come to love like family. But I wonder, would I announce that I am taking a break for a while as Steve did, or would I simply disappear, not write for weeks that turned into months and then years? Then would I one day feel moved to put a toe back into the water and hope a few familiar swimmers were still there? Would they welcome me back or would they have emotionally moved on?

I'm a little weird lately, it's true, but I'm not going anywhere. I might be a little occupied with outside writing from time to time, but I'm here for the laughs, the fists in the air, the tears and the outrage, daily life and spiritual confidences. I'm here for the writing and to chase down the truth. I'm here to process out loud. This blog keeps me a little bit sane. It is a kind of therapy for me, better sometimes than actual therapy, which left me feeling all churned up yesterday.

The truth I've chased down this morning? I'm not in the mood for emotionally churned up. I'm in the mood for inner peace.

Just know I'm grateful for all of you longtime friends who are still writing here, and for new friends whose blogs I've discovered this past year. Onward.