I have come to a realization in the past few days: This blog is an integral part of my
New Zealand experience. Actually, it goes much beyond that, as it is very much a part of my life now.
After posting the other day, when I genuinely felt it was time for me to take a break, I was visited by an old, familiar and unwelcome sensation. That being, a feeling that I had erroneously broken off a relationship - for reasons that felt right at the time but upon reflection now felt absurd. I felt wrong, as if something important was now suddenly missing, and I badly wanted it back.
Okay, I’ll not be
that maudlin about it, but suffice to say I made a big mistake.
And now I aim to correct it.
The other night, after a particularly draining and challenging experience in acting class, I came home to post and abruptly felt as if my blog had become stagnant. I looked at my ‘posts-in-waiting’ (of which there are about a dozen) and my recent topics and felt that things were getting a bit random. My themes were lurching all over the place, and not everything was having to do with
New Zealand.
In similar fashion, I felt like everything I did in 'real life' was something I was critically evaluating for how ‘bloggable’ it was, and suddenly everything seemed fair game. From how many mochaccinos I had in one day (five) to my strange habit of getting to the last few knife-loads of peanut butter at the end of the jar and realizing it required far too much effort to scoop it all out of there and onto the sandwich. So I’d just buy a new jar and start all over again. But I wouldn’t throw out the old jar, since I didn’t want to waste anything, as there would be nearly a whole sandwich's worth of peanut butter in the original jar! So my thriftiness, combined with a weakness for the allure of that smooth, drool-inducing surface of a newly-opened jar of peanut butter, has served to give me this particular quirk. And about four open jars of peanut butter in the pantry.
I wasn’t sure what was worth writing about anymore and what was truly interesting and meaningful to me or to anyone who cared to read about it.
So I felt like it was time to force a little distance between myself and the blog for a while, knowing that I could never truly stop writing it. Just that I wanted to break out of a rut I felt I had fallen into and to gain a fresh perspective.
Something along the lines of how, when you finish writing something for school, it’s best not to immediately proofread it but rather put it in a drawer for a few nights - if not a couple of weeks (depending on your deadline) - and use a set of fresh eyes to critically evaluate it later on.
But I just can’t put this blog down, as I had stated it, even for a little bit. So chastise me for the ‘false start’ (or stop, as it were) and please accept my apology for giving you all the run-around! I love writing this blog and have found that I cannot enjoy my day without thinking about it and viewing the world with more of a writer’s eye. It has become an inseparable part of my whole
New Zealand experience, and to broaden it out quite a bit, part of my life in general.
I am Brooksie, and I am a blog-aholic!
*As spake by Farmer Ted in that glorious 80's movie, Sixteen Candles.
Comments