It's Been Awhile.

I apologise for my absence of late. Amidst holidaying, returning to routine and other bits and pieces that have been going on, I have also been feeling like I have sitting in a creative hollow as far as blogging is concerned. There are a few reasons for this, not all of which I am willing to share, and some of which have taken some soul searching to get to the bottom of.

As a blogger, I enjoy not only writing my own thoughts and experiences but reading the things that other people write, too. I subscribe to over fifty blogs and I read the feeds from these daily. I am terrible at sharing the comments love on other people's blogs, but I love to read them. It feels like a looking glass into people's lives, and I am voyeuristic like that!

However, I was finding that the more I delved into the blogging world, the more disheartened I was becoming. I went through a bit of a blogging existential crisis. I would read about people who received thousands of visits every week, and my humble little blog was plodding towards 4000 visits for the entire few months of its existence. I would see bloggers cross referencing each other, engaging in banter within their posts, be nominated for awards, attract sponsors. I would be very happy for them, these favourite bloggers of mine, but my own exciting blogging moments were limited to seeing another visitor pop up on my page. I'm not sure why all of this bothered me, but it did.

I also found that I was reading blogs written by people with very similar values to me, walking very similar paths, except they seemed to do it so much better than me. Their days seem filled with effortless transitions from one peaceful, meaningful activity to the next, constantly taking advantage of endless learning opportunities that magically arose in their day, peppered with wholesome, homemade, organic snacks and meals for their incredibly well-behaved, calm and tranquil families.

Now, I know it is harder than that. But I also know that blogging becomes our calm place, our place to celebrate the positive things from the day. In our family, those beautiful, educational, wholesome moments happen in between tantrums, headaches, dirty floors, sneaky I-Can't-Be-Bothered-Tonight pizza nights (and not always the healthy homemade ones!), sibling arguments, sulks and a few frequent maternal losses of temper. We are not perfect. We are far from it. I am sorry if my blog thus far has led you to believe otherwise. It's just that, after a day of wading through the shitty moments looking for the good ones, I really don't want to have to relive it by writing about them. Those moments are put to bed when the kids are, and washed down with a glass of wine.

My blog may never win awards. It may not be read by thousands of people. But this little blog will continue to be the place I come to when I reflect on my day, the medium by which I realise "Hey, I'm not doing a bad job here. I'm doing ok."

This blog will continue to be a record of the road I am walking. It will continue to be the space in which I write about my fumbling attempts to live a simpler, greener, calmer life. I have never claimed to be perfect. I have never claimed to be an expert. I don't expect anyone to change the way they live, I am not in the business of judging others for their lifestyle decisions. This blog is my selfish place. This blog is about me. You are welcome along for the ride, but please remember, this is my ride. I will keep blogging, readers or no readers, in order to be true to myself.

So, I'm back.