Why do I abandon my blogs, journals, and diaries?

Well, it's the new year, and with it comes all the GREAT New-Year traditions like making resolutions, working out to burn off all those holiday calories, and...

Oh.

Wait.

It's FEBRUARY.

Um.

Yes, I have done it again; I have abandoned you, my faithful blog!

I have a long history of abandoning writing projects, starting way, back, once upon a time.

Listen here, kiddies, and I will tell you a story about the "blogs" of the olden-days.

Once upon a time, we had these things called diaries.  They were made of paper (yes, real, physical paper!) bound together in the form of a book (go ask your grandma).  

But, these books weren't for reading. No, these were special books where one would record her innermost thoughts and fears, such as her fifth-grade crush on an eighth-grader named Darrell Potyzka.

These books sometimes even had locks on them, so that you could rest assured that no one could see your secret writings.  

But, what if someone DID break into your diary, or find your not-so-cleverly-hidden key?  As a safeguard, you could write a paragraph in your diary that said something like the following:

If you are reading this right now, I would just like to say that you are the most sneaky and horrible person ever! I will never forgive you if you reveal these secrets!  And you know what??  I will KNOW that you read this diary because of the secret way I put it down the last time!  And then you will be in BIG TROUBLE!

Of course, if you were that paranoid about the idea of someone finding and subsequently reading your diary, it would probably occur to you that once the diary was read, there was no "unreading" it, no matter how severe a penalty you executed upon your sibling...er...the perpetrator.  

Just to be sure your precious secrets did not end up in the wrong hands, you would probably stop putting anything of any real interest in the diary.  

Once you'd determined that truly interesting things did not belong in the diary, and realized that the uninteresting stuff was, well, uninteresting to write about, you would eventually put the diary down for good.

And that, my friends, was the early story of my relationship to "journaling".

In my later attempts at journaling, having come to grips with the idea that journals are meant to be read someday, I faced a new problem; who would this reader be?

After all, doesn't a good writer write for her audience?  What would this someday-reader want to read about?  How much "backstory" about my life will this future admirer of my writing desire?

Also, what about all the misspellings in my journal?  What about my horrid handwriting?  The cumulative effect is that of a drunken (if literate) toddler scrawling gushing poetry about men who would eventually break her heart.

Is THAT how I want to be remembered?

No, I decided, no, it is not.

I finally made my mind up to give up on journaling, which is funny, because it then seemed that a journal was the one thing that came to everyone's mind when considering what I might like to have for my birthday, or for Christmas, or for Groundhog's Day.

I have so many journals with filled first few pages...

*sigh*

So, thanks to the Trekkie-types and their fancy-schmancy interweb, I have now a whole new format in which to screw up.  

Alllllriiiiight!!!!

I was lured out of my journaling retirement with the promise of spell-check and neat-and-tidy font, as well as a long list of "safe" things to write about, such as my darling offspring and the joys of parenting.

And, blogging, in so many ways, IS better than journaling.
And, yet, I am flaking out as a blogger, just like I flaked out on the diaries of my youth.

I think I have started (and subsequently abandoned) a total of four blogs.  However, that number could be low...the early 2000's are kind of a blur.

The problem, this time, I believe, is comparison.  I compare my blog content to those with "big ideas", and "pet issues".  They seem to really have something to say, you know?  Their blogs have a real purpose, a real "vision".  Mine is...well...just Jamie.

I suppose there is some work that could be done on this front.  Perhaps I could narrow my focus, write exclusively about my adventures in homeschooling or some other thing...but I'm not exclusively enthusiastic about those things... 

I'd rather write about that which strikes my fancy...

...but then I know that is not what "readers" want...

...and isn't a blog really for the reader, after all?

I mean, I ask myself..."do I really have any business writing something that I am not sure anyone would ever really care to read?"

And, folks, is how to get from "blogs are great, I should write one" to "why even bother" in three easy steps!

So, here I am, writing the, "hey blog, it's been a while" post that I always swear to myself I won't be writing "this time".

Let's see, together, how long I can hang in there with this one, shall we?