opening up

Hello. I'm still here. Blogging has been taking a back seat to life these days. The weather. The Laundry. A year-end homeschooling review. New friends. Rearranging and decorating. Dishes. Four little girls.

Those are the things that have been calling to me and keeping me away.

But I've also been thinking about blogging a lot lately, as well. Thinking about what it means to me. What I want it to be. What has changed. 

I've been a little nostalgic for the old days of blogging. Nowadays there are so many avenues for us to "connect"--twitter, facebook, flickr, blogging, that in the end all of those places feel kind of diluted to me and less meaningful. 

And while I love my blog for the way it marks time, I miss the interaction and that community feeling. That seems to be missing for me lately.

I enjoy the communication.

I like hearing from people.

Last year I adopted this new "philosophy" about blog reading. I decided that I was only going to leave a comment on someone's blog if I felt like I had something to add to the discussion, or if I felt truly "moved" by what the person had said or written about. 

But now, I've completely rejected that "approach". Blogging is about the interaction and the community and the people. And that means letting someone know you've stopped by. 

To use Emily's analogy of blogland as a neighborhood...if we were neighbors, from the same neighborhood, and I passed you on the street, I would say hello. I wouldn't pass without saying anything just because I didn't have something "meaningful" to say. I'd at the very least, acknowledge you. Chances are good that I might even stop and join into conversation with you. 

And that's kind of how I feel about blogging now. Even if I don't have a lot to say, I need to let people know I've stopped by. I need to say hello, leave a footprint.

But then, there's also reality. Who has time to leave a comment on every blog they read? 

So for me, that has meant doing some serious slicing, dicing and editing of the blogs I subscribe to in my reader. That doesn't mean I'm reading every blog post, every day, but it does make it easier for me to respond to the blogs that I do read.

I liken it to my friendships in college. Freshman year, I was friends with lots of people. Tons of people. I was just happy to be finding friends and people to hang out with. Someone to sit with at lunch. Someone to save me a seat in a lecture hall. But as my college years went on, that group of friends became smaller and smaller. By my senior year, I had a small, close-knit group of friends that I cherished. 

And I kind of feel like I'm in my "senior year" of blogging. I don't need to read 50 blogs. And while I still enjoy discovering new people and places, I have a small group of blogs that I consider part of my community and many I consider close friends. This way, I can hopefully bring back the "old school" approach to blogging. The interaction. The community. The relationships.

So I hope you don't think this is a slap on the wrist to all you blog "lurkers". I will be honest and say that sometimes it is discouraging when I venture over to take a peak at my stats and see how many of you stop by without saying hello...but that's not what this is about. This is strictly about my thoughts and feelings on blogging, for me. 

I think we all go through these phases. Days when we're ready close it all down and walk away. Days when the posts are popping up in our head faster than we can get them out. 

And I think it is good for all of us, me, to give something that oftentimes takes a lot of our time, plenty of thought, evaluation and inspection. 

So if you've made it this far, thanks for reading and patiently wading through my thought-process, as I figure out what my "senior year" of blogging looks like for me.