Did you see today's Daily Prompt? It asks: To what extent is your blog a place for your own self-expression and creativity vs. a site designed to attract readers? If sticking to certain topics and types of posts meant your readership would triple, would you do it? I have described my blog before as a hybrid between personal expression and helpful (or at least, interesting) information. Sometimes I feel like I'm veering too much in one direction or like I should be sticking to one topic instead of bouncing all around.
After the Freshly Pressed post I wondered if I should post about grief more because that seemed to resonate with A LOT of people. Since then I've wondered if all the people who followed the blog because of that post have been like, Why is she talking about her puppy and job woes? Get back to the grief posts, lady!
The truth is the last couple of weeks I've been really emotional, not just because of the interview, not just because of my job and everything else, but because this Friday, May 3, is the two-year anniversary of Kaz's passing. If I was only interested in attracting readers I suppose I would be mining this 'opportunity' but instead I've been posting about everything but and took one week off.
Grief is weird. Sometimes we want to face it head on, delve into it like sinking into a warm bath or free falling off the emotional cliff. Other times, we want to avoid it. If I'm honest, this time around I've been feeling the latter. I've been more focused on the future. I'm impatient to make something of my life. I feel like time is running out, not in a doomsday way but like an I'm-not-getting-any-younger kind of way.
The grief is still there, like an itch that won't go away. Around anniversaries like this, it's impossible to escape. Because it's not just me, it's all of his family and friends, their texts, emails, calls and facebook posts. Even if I wanted to bury my head in the sand, I can't. Loss is all around me and I'm trying to navigate it with blinders on. I feel like I haven't been honoring this impending anniversary to some extent. I've been aware of it for weeks but I haven't been giving it the weight it deserves. I keep thinking I'm past certain things but clearly I'm not. Which brings me back to the blog.
In the About page I say that the blog will be reflective of my life, it's not just about one thing and will evolve over time. It is certainely not just about grief. I guess you could say it's about recovering from grief, about trying to pull oneself out of the muck and live again, about trying to reacclimate to the world and reestablish one's identity after being part of an US, and about persuing one's dreams and not giving up.
It may not be a straight line, this blog. It may be more like a winding road that has dips and peaks, straight parts and curves, but is slowly, ever so gradually on an incline. One day maybe we'll reach the peak and we'll look back at the road traveled and say, ah, I get it now.