This Could be the End.

Friends, I need to be honest with you. I struggle blogging. I always have. Some days I love it, some days I hate it.

I like to write.

It's a good outlet for me.

Little Steeds are amazingly adorable.

Friends and family can keep up with some of the goings-on here.

Those are all good things in and of themselves. But...

It is not helping me foster and maintain genuine friendships.

At various times throughout the last month or so, I have received many comments like, 'It sounds like you're doing great from what I read on your blog!' or 'I love reading your blog!'

Let me be clear. I am humbled that anyone would read the blog. And I know these comments are so well intentioned. But the blog is not mean to be a 'data dump.' I'm not interested in just writing down a bunch of stuff, posting it to cyberspace, and then doing that over and over again...all the while, I'm not having genuine relationship maintained with most of my blog readers. A reader knows bits and pieces of what's going on with my family, and, in the meantime, I do not know about how the reader is doing (and I mean how they are, not just the goings-on). And one might argue that the aforementioned data dump description is the very essence of a blog. In that case, I perhaps shouldn't have started it in the first place.

I highly value genuine relationship. It is tremendously important to me, and right now I feel that the blog is a deterrent of sorts. It's making relationship too one-sided for my liking. I will find another way to write, and I'll still post occasional pictures either in emails to friends and family, in the mail, or on FB once in a while. But I need real friendship. We're all made for community, right? I'm not willing to spend the time and energy on developing a bunch of friendships on the web through blog posts and comments. That's just not a desire of mine right now, though I know that approach works well for many.

Maybe the blogging doesn't have to be all or nothing. Maybe I'll post once in a while or something. And perhaps the blogging issue would be different if, in addition to blogging, I had solid friendships that were being maintained and strengthened outside of cyberspace. But that's not happening in my life right now, and I need to focus my energies on fostering community that's around me and friendships that I left in Lombard and elsewhere.

Thanks for your patience with me, and thanks for reading!