Balancing the Blog

For me, blogging is a stress relief.  However, if my life is unorganized or chaotic, I find that it goes to the bottom of my list. Hence why I dropped off after beginning vacation and even after returning home.

When I first started blogging, it was because I was being very organized to this whole quitting alcohol thing.  Every morning I would grab my tea, blog my thoughts, read others blogs, and comment accordingly.

Vacation threw me off.  Well, that and having my car totaled didn't help.

I was frustrated that I couldn't find time to blog, really couldn't think of anything to say and didn't really have much energy for commenting.

I understood that I needed to get organized again.  I was in a huge funk last week.  But the new car is now in the garage, I have done enough grieving for my old one, the bills that I neglected are now all paid and caught up, the suitcase has finally been unpacked and the laundry has been done.  I spent quality time with family over the weekend and I am ready to begin anew.

I feel like I am back in a "zone" of some sort.

For the first 50 days, I needed to blog everyday. I had so much I wanted to say to myself, to document my journey.  Early on I thought about quitting alcohol every moment.  All day long.

One day that evaporated.  It's as if it culminated in this one huge craving and, ever since I worked through that, all my desire to talk to myself anymore, too much, about it, just disappeared.  I've posted a few things this week but now I'm feeling empty again.

The only thing I can think of is that this is how I have approached a lot of things in life.  I was really into violin until I wasn't.  I got really into piano lessons until I quit.  I played home video games in intermediate school until I was done.  I flew planes and wanted to be a pilot, until I didn't.  I gave all of these things full energy.....for awhile.

I think that quitting alcohol became one of these pursuits.  I was giving 2 hours + per day to the blogging universe between drafting my own posts, reading all the blogs I was following and commenting on many of them.  I thought of not drinking....all the time....Then I flamed out.

Suddenly, it seemed like a chore to think of something to write.  A burden to go through all the blogs.  And yet, I find many posts to be inspiring.  I feel like I have made blogging friends and want to nurture those friendships. But I felt overwhelmed.

I had to take a break.  I don't need the day to day support for myself anymore but I want to be there for others just as many supported me.

The feeling of being in overwhelm-dom lifted a bit once I got all my tasks done.  I feel my mind opening up again.  I just need to find a balance with keeping up with this supportive sober universe while not feeling overwhelmed by getting behind in other tasks or being distracted by too much thinking about not drinking.

I would like for this to have a continued place in my life.  Not just be a fad that I tried until I lost interest.  I definitely don't want "quitting drinking" to be a fad of mine either!!!

HD