On Blogging and Moving and Falling Apart a Little

I was never someone who thought about "blogging breaks." I just blogged, and over time it went from being a new hobby to a little money-making side project, until last year when it became my "full-time" job (I say "full-time" with quotations because while I feel like I've had some success, there are still days where I have a hell of a lot of time on my hands and think, "okay, what am I doing?"). Even when I would take a vacation, I missed it. My laptop was always with me, ready to be opened and my camera was on my shoulder, ready to shoot; ready to document and share and generally be on top of things.

So it's been a few weeks of less posting around here and I feel a lot of pressure. From whom, I don't know. But I have anxiety and routines are important for me, so it has been extremely difficult to keep it together and still feel self-employed during this transition.

I'm writing this because I guess I didn't realize until a few days ago how rough August has been for me. I didn't know I wasn't supposed to believe the moving company's estimator who came to our apartment in Minneapolis and said he didn't think our stuff would take longer than five days to catch up with us in Charlotte--a declaration that made the three weeks it has actually taken feel to me like several months. (I say this like our stuff is finally moved in, and not sitting on a broken-down truck somewhere in North Carolina as I write this.)

And then things in your personal life crumble a little and suddenly you wonder what's happening to you. It's my story, but it's not, so the details really aren't even mine to tell; and life isn't always sunshine and rainbows even though you never wanted to be the blogger who wrote the ambiguous post declaring that life is more than sunshine and rainbows, but here you are telling people about the clouds overhead.

All of this is to say that I'm still here, even if you aren't hearing from me that much right now. I'm just taking my time, even though it feels ridiculous to be so busy and overwhelmed when your job is barely demanding. Rob and I will actually get our stuff and I'll sit at my desk and regain a little bit of control over my day. Our friends will visit and some weekends we'll drive to Roanoke and Richmond and DC or Charlottesville and hug the people we love and one day we'll look back on that terrible move and the really hard August, hopefully with a smile.

But until then, I would just really love to have a chair.