To Blog Again

I stopped blogging three years ago. Really, I haven’t routinely blogged in five years. For a while I randomly posted my thoughts every couple months, but the creative flow that kept me posting daily during college dried up and left me without much to say.

Writing has been my passion for years, so you shouldn’t think that because I stopped blogging I stopped writing. Actually I wrote a lot—and I still do. But “life after college” is never what we think it will be, and the time and energy to think up a great post every day just wasn’t there anymore.

A lot happened in those several years of silence. Life has been good, life has been bad.

“Life after college” was supposed to be easy, and I was supposed to fall effortlessly into my dreams. Funny thing, though… nothing I planned on happened. Nothing.

If I were to post my personal journaling from the past five years, you’d see a lot of confusion and hurt. Bitter reflections, frankly. For all the high hopes I had, I met a lot of disappointment.

This furthered my silence. How could I write about life when I no longer understood it?

So I got quiet. My thoughts went into the cavern of my computer, never to be seen or heard from. That sounds dramatic, but it was really for the best. I look over those bitter notes of anguished reflection and feel that same sense of lost depression. Posting those notes would have decimated a readership, and sent what few readers remained off to the mental hospital. Not to mention alienated the people closest to me.

Lately, though, the desire to write has returned in a big way. I have thoughts that I want to share again, and the dust has settled enough for me to see truths clearly that I never saw before. I’m no longer dwelling in a shadow, and neither is my writing.

The darkness of the last few years has met Light. I met that Light in a new way almost a year ago, and though life is still a far cry from the idealistic world of my early twenties, I’ve learned that it doesn’t matter. Only the Light does.

So I’m back to blogging. But this time it’s different.

First, I no longer care what you think. (Actually, yes I do. But I’m not controlled by it.) What I write is my opinion. If you don’t like it, you can tell me. But I’m no longer governed by the opinions of others.

Second, my view of God is different. I need another post to do this point justice, but suffice it to say that I serve the same Jesus, but not for the same reasons.

Third, I’m willing to admit that I still have dark days. Five years ago, I would have only admitted to a problem if it was resolved. Now, I’m willing to admit that I don’t have it all together… and likely never will.

Finally, I won’t be posting daily. Usually. Sometimes I will, but most likely this will be once every several days. Life is too busy for me to do this every day.

So I invite you to read on if you like. I plan to write about the world around me and my day to day observations and experiences. But mostly I plan to follow that Light that has been driving away the darkness.