I remember when I used to be a blogger

I remember when I used to be a blogger, rather than a guy who occasionally updates web pages.

It was a long time ago, wasn’t it?

I can’t even find a good way to graph my blogging frequency anymore. I know it used to be daily, and then several weekly, and then once in a while. Lately, it’s more like almost never.

Sometime in 08, I think it was, than the slide started; from there, it just seems like little by little I’ve given up.

I don’t mean on blogging – whatever. I mean on writing.

The last think I wrote that wasn’t just about an experience was two, maybe three years ago, aside from a couple of abortive tries and collaboration on erotica. The last thing I finished was a year or more before that.

I’m so rusty, my fingers don’t even remember how to type anymore (it took me three tries to get the work ‘type’ correct). My hands ache when I try, more from disuse than from anything else. The muscles have forgotten what its’ like to type more than the hundred or so lines I need to update a wiki page or type out a report.

I don’t even remember how I used to do this; I try to remember writing Wanton, and while I remember the feeling, I can’t figure out how I actually did it.

I started this blog – back in the dim, distant past in blog-years – with the express intent of using it to improve my writing. That never worked; or to be more specific, it got me writing something i hadn’t before (introspective essays), but didn’t help me with fiction – because it was a distraction.

Now, though? now, I’m lucky if I manage enough attention span to tweet one thing or to update my facebook status.

I was going to say I don’t know what it is, but that’s not true. I know what it is, I just don’t know what to do about it.

I’ve been in a sate of have to do something for so long now, I can’t quite my brain long enough to put words together with anything like flow.

This was bad enough, just with the ordinary stuff. Work – making the Greatest Smart Phone Ever (and the best tablet you’ve ever seen and didn’t even know you needed) isn’t just a full time job; it’s a lifestyle. We’re a seven day a week shop, and my area is to be the glue that keeps the 24 hrs per day stuff (the compute farm) going. So I’m working even when I’m not working, always aware that nothing holds this together but me. I dream compute farms and CAD tool licenses at night. And then, there’s the part about being the father of two teenager girls, which isn’t ever an easy job, even for very low needs children. Then there’s the rental house, my own house, and all the rest. Life has caught up with me in ways I didn’t quite anticipate; being The Dad to not just two, but four women (including my mother in law) takes it’s toll.

But now – well, that’s a whole ‘nother entry about Mental Health Issues. But that’s another entry, if I ever get to it.

But the bottom line is, finding even half an hour to gather myself and write, these days, is more than I can manage.

I need it. I need to put words to my feelings, to tell stories. And I fucking can’t.

I don’t see an end to this, I truly don’t. I know it has one – I just can’t imagine how or where or when.

And my best tool has deserted me again.