Tuesday, October 20, 2015

The Preciousness of Time

I regret to report that my mother in law's friend, who made the decision to no longer use the device needed to keep him alive, passed away on Sunday.

Hemingway said "Write hard and clear about what hurts".

I have a story to tell.

Once upon a time, there was an author, a retired college professor up in Alaska, who I cyber-met during an author's blog challenge.  I started to read her blog, and enjoyed a couple of her weekly writing features. One was a book she was writing, one weekly blog post at a time, about an alien stranded on a prehistoric Earth. She seemed like the Iron Woman of Blogging.

She had blogged daily for some 10 years, despite being treated for cancer.  Sometimes she talked about that, but not that much.  She continued her writing, her tweeting.

One day, she admitted the cancer had returned, but remained upbeat after treatment.

One day, seemingly out of the blue, she stated, matter-of-factually, that she was terminally ill, and was trying to find a "literary executor".  The weekly book suddenly accelerated, but the writing was weak and sloppy - the writing of a woman who was trying to do too much in too little time, with a body that was no loner supporting her efforts.

The blogging stopped.  A couple of months later, she was dead.

The tweeting continued - obviously, the tweets were scheduled far in advance.  It was sad, seeing those ghost tweets, and knowing the person behind them was dead.

She's been dead almost a year now.

Why am I thinking about her today?

It's because I have blogged daily since 2011, but I've lost my reason for the daily blogging, a reason that was intensely personal.  Suffice it to say that the reason no longer exists.

I'm afraid, with the blogging habit so ingrained, that if I miss even one day, I will never blog again.  I don't think that is true. I've put so much work into this blog that I don't want to lose it.  I don't want to lose my readers.  I enjoy many of them, even if I don't respond to all my posts.

There's really no need to blog daily.  Many bloggers have successful blogs publishing on regular schedules, several times a week.

But I think of that woman, and her ghost tweets, and the rapid end to her 10 years of blogging.  In the end, it meant nothing.

I should be upbeat - I should be taking inspiration from writing this post.

But I'm not.  Time is more and more precious every day, and less and less of my time is my own.

But, like so many other bloggers, I have a story to tell.  And for now, I will continue to tell it.  Whether it remains to be told daily, that is a decision I will make in the coming days or weeks.

7 comments:

  1. We all have to rethink our priorities from time to time, because time is precious and we need to be sure about how we want to spend it. Not that any of us, I think, get to spend all of our time exactly as we would wish.

    Blogging rates pretty high on my priorities, as it seems to for you, but there are other priorities and sometimes those take precedence. When they do, we let it happen and get back to blogging when we can. After all, the only one forcing us to do it is ourselves. I have no illusions that my readers are going to be beating down my door if I don't blog every day. Some would probably miss me, but I doubt that I rank very high on their priorities! I blog simply because of the pleasure it gives me - the pleasure of self-expression.

    ReplyDelete
  2. This is a sad, but thought-provoking post. It's true, we just never know how our words and daily/multiple times weekly posts might influence others...or how we will be missed when we stop posting! I know I enjoy your posts, and would miss them -AND you - if you stopped posting.

    ReplyDelete
  3. I doubt if you stop posting daily that you'll stop posting all together. Maybe that's an experiment to try. Take a week off and see how you feel. We'll miss you, but we'll still be here when you get back. You'll find that new balance.

    ReplyDelete
  4. We all have something to say, and years after we pass to time. Some where our writing will a show up again and some one will say...That how it was in a certain year and I didn't know the ladies in 2000 something paid over $2.00 for a gallon of milk.

    Coffee is on

    ReplyDelete
  5. It is sad when life ends too soon. As for blogging, you might find it easier to cut back if you assign set days for posting. Best wishes.

    ReplyDelete
  6. Dear Alana. Your words touched my heart and ran a tune of response in mine. I wonder why I blog daily too, although I haven't done so for as long as you have.
    My original purpose was to draw attention to my writing in the vein hope that someone would like it enough to read my novels. That hasn't happened.
    I'm like a starving artist in her garret. If nobody sees my work, my effort is for nothing. Yet, I go on every day, finding a news item to talk about instead of focusing on my love of creative writing.
    One, there were fewer bloggers. Now, like novel writers, there are too many. Who knows about the future? Today, we're blogging.

    ReplyDelete
  7. Such difficult choices, Alana. After last month's daily blogging effort, I wondered if I should blog every day too. I asked some experts about this and they told me it was a good idea. But instead of following their advice, I started knitting and painting and blogging sporadically. If you're blogging daily makes you happy, then do it. I've decided to do what makes my heart happy in the present moment - blogging, or knitting or splashing paint.

    ReplyDelete

Thank you for visiting! Your comments mean a lot to me, and I appreciate each one. These comments are moderated, so they may not post for several hours. If you are spam, you will find your comments in my compost heap, where they will finally serve a good purpose.