This is an entry I originally wrote on June 15th. But I never was able to finish it, and instead went with Bad Monkey pooping in a diaper. Since then, I've changed, updated, and altered it a half-dozen times, but still ended up not publishing it for one reason or another. Then Hilly went and posted something along similar lines today, so I figured it was probably time I just went ahead and let it go (after cutting out several paragraphs of angst, then updating it again to be more current)...

I want to take a break from blogging, but I don't know how.

It's not that I don't have anything to blog about... I just don't have anything I can blog about. The only things going on in my life right now are work and personal stuff, neither of which I choose to talk about online. So instead I muddle through, posting even stupider crap than usual just to keep my blog going at a time when blogging is the last thing I want to be doing. It would be nice if this were a temporary situation, but right now there's no end in sight.

The obvious solution would be to go on hiatus. But I'm fairly certain that if I gave up blogging for any length of time, I would end up abandoning it all together. The only thing that keeps Blogography going is my habit to post every single day. The minute I start skipping days or filling in with guest-bloggers is when I might as well shut down altogether rather than spiral towards the inevitable.

But I'm not ready to say goodbye. At least not yet.

So I've been trying to renew my enthusiasm for blogging by doing a lot of guest-posting, taking part in Blogathon 2009, limiting my time on Twitter and FaceBook, meeting up with other bloggers, coming up with recurring content ideas, and trying to steer clear of memes and other "easy" filler.

I don't know if it's working just yet, but I certainly hope so.

Because blogging has come to mean an awful lot to me, and the thought of having something so important die off is painful. At first I thought it was because of the relationships with readers and fellow bloggers that I've been lucky enough to find... but ultimately I think it's the relationship I've built with myself here that's the most important. While not a personal blog by any means, Blogography has become an outlet for self-expression that would be very hard to replicate any place else. It's an opportunity to step outside the horrors of Real Life once each day and finding a part of my life I can share... even if it is just a drawing of a monkey.

My blog may just be a reflection of a small part of me, but it's still me.

And I think that's something worth saving.

So I'll keep trying.