Quiet Times.

{A very teeny tiny snail}

I took an unscheduled blog-break for the last half of October.  Things have been pretty quiet around these parts lately and I felt like I had nothing to write about, nothing to contribute.  I know that my blog is my personal space to share whatever I like, but I feel like I should write posts that mean something.  Posts that I would want to read.  And I just wasn't feeling it.

I've been back in England for just over three weeks now and it almost feels like I never left.  My apartment feels like a holiday home, New Jersey like recent vacation destination.  Everything is so familiar here, and I was just getting settled there, it's like my brain has already settled back into the idea of England Home, America Holiday.  I look at the pictures I took while I was with S and I have to consciously remind myself that that is where I live now, that here is just temporary.  Weird feeling.

{The awesome house I live in}

It's also weird because I don't have anything to do here.  There wasn't a job to come back to, a routine to continue.  I arrived, I unpacked, I sat down and I stayed there.  My days have started to drift into one long lazy afternoon, curled up with a book and a cat or completing another crocheted round on my throw.  Not that I mind having the freedom to take it easy, to not have to worry about chores or bills or, well, anything at all.  It just doesn't really make for a very interesting story; it leaves me feeling uninspired to write, like I've nothing important or exciting or even valid to say.

I think a lot of bloggers have encountered this feeling, this need to write consistently thought-provoking, inspiring, interesting material.  It's a pressure we experience when we read the blogs of others, whose every post is an epiphany, a glance into a creative world we just can't quite reach, a myriad of awesome ideas and things.  It's easy to forget that they are regular people, that they too have no doubt struggled with what they want to communicate to the world.  It's a pressure we create for ourselves, an idea that we need to measure up to everyone else and that, for whatever reason, we can't, we never will.  It's one I find myself experiencing all too frequently and I forget that, actually, this is my space.  I can write whatever I desire here. It's okay if it isn't ground-breaking because it's mine, my place to keep a record of the things that excite and inspire me.

{So many pretty skies, the view from the deck}

I need to keep reminding myself of that.  The longer I go without the writing, the easier it is to keep putting it off and I know that, really, I'm just being lazy.  And I absolutely must remember that this is for me, not anyone else, that there is no pressure to be a certain way or say particular things.  It's bizarrely easy to forget that, don't you think?

I hope you're all having a truly wonderful weekend.

Love, K.