January was a rough month for Aloysa’s Kitchen Sink. So was the beginning of February. Hopefully from this moment forward it will be smoother sailing. One can only hope for it, right?
A lot of you asked me what happened, why I pulled the plug so unpredictably. A few of you asked me to come back! I do owe you some answers. At least, I feel that I do.
What happened
I don’t have a thrilling story to tell about Lithuanian mob requesting at gun point to pull the website down because of my post How We Did Business The Mob Style. FBI did not put Beaker and me into the witness protection program, and did not send us to some remote farm in Ohio.
No broken hearted women wrote me hate letters because they felt that I portrayed them in A Good Gym Is Difficult To Find. Just Like A Good Man. Maybe one day I will get hate mail from at least one of these women. It would make a great blog post, wouldn’t it?
My story is pretty trivial. I simply burned out. Don’t you feel it sometimes? When the pressure at work is building up at a hectic pace, and you start to wonder if you are going to have a mental breakdown? When you come home and feel completely drained, and not a single coherent thought crosses your mind? That was me. It didn’t happen in one day. In fact, it was weighing me down for weeks.
I shamelessly gave up on my blog because it seemed to be the easiest way out.
Why I Pulled the Plug
I like closures. I don’t like to abandon anything and let it float in time and space unattended. Is it compulsive obsessive? I don’t know. Perhaps. But don’t get me wrong. It was not the happiest moment in my blogging career. The feeling of closure, the finality of it was painful. It felt irrevocable and complete. Or so I thought.
One great thing emerged from this as I call it “not so classy exit” debacle. Your support, emails and forum discussions made me think really hard. In fact, you made me reconsider a lot of things about blogging and myself as a blogger.
You made me feel as if I was still on the blogging ride, my mind caught in some tremendous gravitational force that pulled me back in, right where I was before I thought I left it all behind.
You probably don’t realize it but you also taught me some valuable lessons:
– No one is alone in the blogging world. There is a lot of support, understanding and care.
– Expectations should be reasonable. No one is expected to be perfect.
– If you need help, ask for it. That’s what friends and guest posts are for.
– If you need a break then take a break, have some rest, get away from it all. Financial Samurai said it the best “If you can speak forever, you can blog forever.” Ditto!
What Future Holds
Even though I am still sorting things out, I am ready for a comeback. I wrote this post with a lot of hope and a feeling of endless possibilities.
Talk It Out: Money and Relationships column will be back, and I hope for its first appearance next Monday. Beaker is excited to continue his series Beaker’s World. There is still a lot to discuss about our trip to China. I missed some great blog swaps and, even though, I cannot promise to make up for it, I will come up with something to compensate for missing all of this.
I cannot promise to post three times a week. But I can promise that I am back to blogging.
Are you in?