Extenuating blogging circumstances

Goals are nice to have, but sometimes they have to be ignored, and this is one of those times. This year, there was never going to be any way I’d hit my goal of an average of one blog post per day. I couldn’t possibly care less.

I was behind in blogging much of the year, mostly because of the continuing challenges of living with drugs that make me extremely tired. I just didn’t have the gas to complete the drive.

Everything changed, of course, in September. On the thirteenth, I wrote:

“…fair warning—I know that I almost certainly won’t achieve my blogging goal this year, for reasons I’ll explain another time. Right now, though, I’ll say this: I don’t care about that. Part of the reason for that is, as I’ve said before, the goal itself doesn’t really matter. I now truly understand that.”

At the time, we thought that Nigel was very sick, and I thought that getting him well would take a lot of time and effort, leaving me with little or none for blogging. It became clear that things were worse than we could have imagined, and a week after I published that post (which was actually written a couple days earlier and scheduled for publication), Nigel died. After, I just didn’t give a shit about blogging.

What brought me back to blogging at all was that I needed to tell stories—Nigel’s first, and also mine as I try to work out what my new life without him will be all about. But that drive couldn’t possibly ever be enough get even remotely close to my annual goal, as I said at the start of this post. And I’m completely okay with that.

Next month, I move into my new house in a new town in a new life. Some of that will go very well, some won’t, but I’m planning on talking about it all. I may or may not hit my goal next year, but I don’t really care either way. Life really is too short to “sweat the small stuff”.

So, as this blogging year draws to a close, I’m feeling completely relaxed about where I’m at with it. But I’d quit blogging and delete everything if it would bring back my life with Nigel, and that’s the reality overshadowing everything in my life right now.

I’ve learned that goals are nice to have, but sometimes they have to be ignored. This yearI didn’t hit my goal of an average of one blog post per day. I couldn’t possibly care less.