For the Sake of the Call

For the Sake of the Call

Sep. 10, 2007 - A Difficult Goodbye

This is a difficult post for me to write, but it is a necessary one.

It's time for me to step away from blogging for an indefinite amount of time.

The past year and a half of blogging have yielded tremendous blessings for me. As the number of real life blogger friends increases, I have reconnected with long lost friends and better kept in touch with others. I know that there are friends in other states who have enjoyed keeping in touch with our family through reading our blog, and I regret to lose that source of connection with them. I have also been able to develop relationships with countless new friends who have encouraged, blessed, supported, challenged, and exhorted me. Their support has been so precious to me, especially in the transitionary time as we moved from Virginia to Indiana.

As many benefits have come from blogging, there have also been negatives. While I have enjoyed having a place to record my thoughts, I have also become obsessive about how people will respond to what I've just posted and what I should blog about next. I am constantly thinking about blogging to the point where it has become a major distraction to my daily life. While we have started off well in our schoolyear and are still on track after 5 weeks, there are still things that I would like to do with the kids (art, foreign language, poetry...) that I'm not doing because of the time I spend on the computer. While the lower two levels of the house have been maintained enough that we have been able to be hospitable to others, the upstairs has once again turned into a disaster area, and I have procrastinated from cleaning it with blogging. I would never spend hours in front of the television when I had other work to do, but somehow I can justify spending hours on the computer reading blogs. I don't even read books for pleasure during the daytime, but I'll read blogs until I give myself a headache from staring at the computer screen. I have tried to set boundaries and use the computer as an incentive for getting other work done, but it just hasn't worked. I have a compulsive, addictive personality to begin with, and just as I have done in the past with soap operas and reality television, I just need to quit cold turkey. I wish that I could be more balanced and not so obsessive, I long for greater self-control.

I have also become increasingly more emotionally involved in the computer world, and then when conflict inevitably arises, I am wounded, hurt, frustrated, and disturbed. These feelings then carry over to the rest of my life. My children deserve better than a mother who is distracted because of something that happened in the internet world. Where blogging once encouraged and inspired me, it now drains me and saps my mental energy. I am plagued by the posts that I haven't had time to write and I have lost my joy.

Life is getting busier. We have two field trips scheduled for this week and we will also still need to complete our bookwork. Soccer has started, Scouts is starting and there are ministry opportunities at church. I'm getting more involved with the local homeschool group and making an effort to develop friendships with the people here. I always enjoyed scrapbooking, but I haven't touched my albums in 3 years except to pack them and move them. I have much to organize before I can even begin making albums again. There are books that I want to read and walls that need to be painted. I'm finally getting a desk and need to organize our office/schoolroom. I still need to be more consistent with homeschooling and haven't yet implemented a daily housecleaning schedule. I have a daughter who wants to learn to sew and cross stitch. There are cross stitches I would love to do myself. It would be great if I could do all these things and blog about them too, but that hasn't happened in the past year of blogging, and the more time I spend on the computer, the less time I have to do anything else.

I apologize to those of you who have faithfully read my blog. To my dear friends, both real and imaginary! I am praying that after a time away, after I've been able to get organized and accomplish some other things; that I will be able to set some boundaries and return. Until then, I am going to have to quit blogging altogether, because even reading just a couple of my favorite blogs opens the door to the temptation of getting sucked into the computer for hours. I don't have a whole lot of free-time, and I'm frustrated by the things I'm not accomplishing when I spend all of it on the computer.

This has been an incredibly difficult decision to make. It takes me back to my senior year in high school. I was on the Speech Team, in the show choir, and in the spring musical. I had been at school until after 10pm for musical practice and when I got home, I turned on the stove to reheat some spaghetti for dinner. I mistakenly turned on the wrong burner and set on fire my mom's german basket. Fortunately, the fire was put out before any major harm was done, but in my exhaustion, I had endangered my house and my entire family. Tennis was scheduled to begin on the heels of the musical, and I was supposed to be on the Varsity team for the first time. My mom told me I could not play tennis. For once, I wasn't angry; I was relieved. It was all too much, but I couldn't say no myself. My tennis coach was not very happy, but I could blame my mom. Now I'm all grown up and no one has told me I can't blog anymore, so I have to make the tough decision myself.

Blessings to you and your families. I will miss reading about your lives. Pray that I would learn what God has to teach me in my time away so that I may be able to rejoin you with greater balance and in moderation.

In Him,

Angel

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Sep. 10, 2007 - Untitled Comment

Posted by Prncsstefy

You'll be missed!