Lately

I would like to preface this by saying that this is not a complaint, it is a reflection. I am struggling here. I cannot fathom how anyone could possibly have a full-time job and maintain a blog at the same time. Kudos to you if you do it. Large, grandiose kudos if you're spending your entire workday doing creative things and still come home and manage to pull posts out of your back pocket. Me? I'm beyond braindead. The thought of looking at another computer screen makes me cringe. Oh the humanity! (How ridiculous does this sound? How inconsequential? I am all too aware.)

Yes, this winter has been tough. It's been a blur of snow, ice, insane work days, and just the right amount of personal adventure. It is not stressful, just intense. Like exercise, I have to build up endurance to this sort of thing. I feel like this year has been all about endurance-building.

When I come back to my blog it's just plain hard. And the more time I spend away from it, the more difficult it is to want to revisit. Something has to give, and this is usually first on the chopping block. I can't spend all day on Pinterest or surfing the web looking for pretty things. It just can't happen anymore, if it ever did to begin with. Finding personal inspiration is a job in and of itself and no number of "10 steps to being creative" columns could possibly fix that (those are mostly bogus anyway).

Truthfully, I don't even know if I'm missed. I clicked through a reader comment earlier this week and found her blog to be, shall we say, very similar to mine... having even stolen my actual social media buttons along with carefully-honed column ideas and templates. That was a great surprise after a long day, let me tell you. Not to go all "curse the young whippersnapper!" but I'm just disappointed. I wish I saw more new ideas. I wish that she felt the drive to be authentic and personal. If you're reading this, person, you can do better. And you'll be a better blogger if you are being yourself. That is exactly what I'm going for here.

No, I haven't given up. This is not the end, and there will be more posts. I can't let it go. But it only makes sense to embrace the reality of this new phase rather than trying to retrofit something for the sake of posting. Since most of my story-telling seems to be happening on Instagram (follow me @notetosarah), I thought I'd start there with a little bit of life lately (extended caption edition).

If you have chosen to do so, I thank you for sticking by me. Note to self: Make it work...