Two Zero Two One

Is it too late to write a year-end/start-of-year post? If it is, just let me know and I will stopping typing and go look in the fridge for the eighth time in the last hour, just to see if anything moved when I wasn’t watching.

Quick question: Anyone else watch Toy Story as a kid and then arrange their toys in a weird way, so that if they moved when you weren’t looking, they had a really difficult position to get back to?

Because I…I didn’t do that. Nope. Not me. Not once. Not ever. Nope. What is Soy Tory anyway? Never heard of it.

Anyway, I’ve talked myself in and out of writing this post for about a month because who really wants to talk about “the year that shall not be named” more than necessary?

It was a hard time for everyone, whether we’ve shared our story on social media, or not. And it remains a hard time.

But one thing I’ve always been able to come back to is this blog. For some reason, this place feels detached from the real world and it’s just us – the people who like to talk to themselves, via writing.

Analogy: I don’t know if you ever had a class in a portable during your years of education, but that is what this feels like to me. We’re apart of the school, but not really, because we’re outside in our little silo.

Last year, though, I felt like this blog was slipping away from me. I don’t know if you would’ve come to that conclusion looking back on everything I wrote, but deep down, it felt different.

And I’m not even entirely sure how to explain all of this. I just felt out of rhythm most of the time. My blog felt stale. I’ve been meaning to edit stuff on my home page and have kept putting it off.

More than that, I fell victim to the stats page and the parabolic shape the “views” bar graphs have taken. Are my best years of blogging behind me? Have I run out of interesting things to say? Why are 98% of my new followers not real? Why am I finding it harder to find new blogs I enjoy? Does anyone care?

I felt like an athlete who was starting to feel like the game had become too fast for them.

Note: If you’re thinking I ever thought about giving up blogging, I didn’t. I’m doing this until I’m 100-years-old.

There were so many ideas that entered my mind, that I wanted to follow through on, but never did. I couldn’t muster up the energy for them.

In the past, I’d be like, “I can’t wait to share this!” And all of a sudden it was like, “It’s a hassle to write. Who would even care?” I just felt really discouraged a lot of the time.

I’m very willing to blame that mindset on the pandemic as well as personal things that transpired last year.

For some reason, I get a lot of inspiration for posts by just doing something mundane like walking down the street and picking up lunch. Something always seems to happen, or a stranger comes up to talk to me.

I couldn’t do that anymore. It was a lost source of inspiration.

That being said, I am proud of the “First Time Watching” series that I started. It forced me to do something new (watch movies) and I’m having fun discovering a world that every else was already aware of.

This blog has always provided me with so much relief. I finish writing posts and can feel a physical weight being lifted off my shoulders. There is a sense of joy that comes along with it.

That’s another thing that’s hard to explain.

I tell myself all the time that I can feel that joy more often if I just sit down and write more often. Simple, right? Yet, the opposite happens. I write less.

One thing I’ve noticed in the first two weeks of this year is that I seem to have adopted a “Just Go For It” mentality. I don’t know where it came from, or if someone’s going to put up “Missing” posters and I’m going to be forced to return it, but every time I thought about writing this post, or trying out a new idea, a voice inside me kept saying, “Just go for it”.

So, that’s what I’m going to try and do this year. At least, for this blog. Maybe it’ll trickle into my own life, too.

If you want to join in on that mindset, feel free to hop onboard.

I’ve had a new idea that I’ve been kicking around for a few months, that I think I’m ready to unveil tomorrow. It’s a fun idea (I think) and it includes all of you.

Now that I’ve said that, I’m terrified it’s not going to go over well, so I guess this is me pre-emptively guilting you into pretending to like it. So, ha!

Let’s all have a good year – at least out here in our blogging silo – and just go for it.

Thanks for reading!